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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860678">Pandemic</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher'>eldritcher</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pandemic [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Civil War, Coming of Age, Contemporary Culture, Coronavirus, Epidemics crossing over from the Muggle world and affecting Wizards, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Friendship, Intimacy, Isolation, Loneliness, Love, M/M, Novella, Politics, Romance, Search for The One True Love, Sentient Hogwarts, Sex, Surrealism, The Quest for Emotional Fulfillment, Wartime, coup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:28:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>133,093</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860678</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Delphini comes into her own. Harry and Voldemort find common ground in their love for her.  Pandemics, coups, civil wars, and sentient castles get in the way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Delphi &amp; Harry Potter, Delphi &amp; Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort, Past Abraxas Malfoy/Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pandemic [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137872</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>241</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>21 Slash Recs for 21 Years (2001 - 2021), Longreads to make you cry and laugh and heal, The best of the best</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Pandemic will be to your taste if you like <i>bildungsroman</i> or coming of age stories.   I am a careful writer, but please watch your step around the psychological aspects. Unedited. Alternate Universe. Not canon compliant. </p><p>With its supporting stories, Pandemic constitutes a full AU series spanning from the 1900s to the 2020s. If you are new to my writing, I suggest using <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137872">the series reading order here</a> to ease yourself into the stories. </p><p>Enjoy the read. Allow me to sail you home.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <strong>The Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics  (C.R.U.P.)</strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
<em>November 2019</em>
</p><p>"Is he single?"</p><p>They were watching a replay of a Quidditch match. Harry was crushing hard on one of the Beaters.</p><p>Ron groaned at this perfectly reasonable question. Even Hermione, adept ally that she was to Harry's commitment to ending singlehood in 2019, seemed tired.</p><p>"Does it need to happen this year?" she asked patiently.</p><p>"Yes! It was my New Year Resolution!" Harry exclaimed. </p><p>"And it was the last year's resolution too. Hang on, what about the year before that?" </p><p>Harry wanted to shove Ron's face into the pincushion he was cuddling. It was stained from Rose's and Hugo's childhood exploits. Buy it for life, Ron had said, when they had gone shopping before their first baby. The tattered and stained cushion was a strange and blotchy yellow. None of them remembered what the original color had been. </p><p>It reflected Harry's mood quite well.</p><p>"These things take the time they do," Ron said, striving to cheer him up. </p><p>"Yes, look at Aunt Muriel!" Hermione chimed in.</p><p>"Look at Dumbledore!" Ron added.</p><p>Harry did not want to look at Aunt Muriel or Dumbledore, thank you very much.</p><p>He wanted to find the one and get laid for the rest of his life. If he never had to stir Fred and George's wishing pot to find another date, he could die happy.</p><p><em>Stir clockwise if you want to hit it, stir counterclockwise if you don't!</em> </p><p>That had been exciting for all of three months. </p><p>Going on ten years in his dry spell, he had smashed more than one of those pots. His friends kept gifting them on his birthday, convinced that this would be the year. </p><p>He had been convinced too that 2019 was going to be the year. Hermione and Ron had their Christmas decorations ready and were discussing who their first-footer should be. What was there to discuss? It was Snape. It was always Snape, grudgingly being cajoled into the errand by Dumbledore's latest emotional blackmail techniques. </p><p>"Are you thinking of Severus?" Hermione asked, wickedly perceptive when she wanted to be. </p><p>"No," Harry muttered. </p><p>"Mum wants to know who you are bringing for Christmas dinner," Ron said. </p><p>"My date!" <br/>
 <br/>
Ron and Hermione looked at each warily. Fine, Harry had shown up alone in the past couple of decades more often than not! That was not his fault. </p><p>"Excuse me for not getting married right out of school!" </p><p>"It will happen in its own time," Hermione said supportively. "Try not to rush the process."</p><p>What kookie new-age magazine had she been reading? Eat, pray, love, she said. Easy for her! She had two overachieving children and a balding husband who still loved her, despite stretch lines and cellulite! </p><p>---- </p><p>Harry sprinted up the circular stairs to Dumbledore's office. </p><p>He was running late for their Saturday game-night. </p><p>"Late again! Exactly as your father!" Snape greeted him, </p><p>"He has been dead for four decades, you stuck-up prig!" Harry reminded him. "Where is your arm-candy?"</p><p>"Ah, Harry, if you valued your life, I would not call Minerva arm-candy!" Dumbledore said, as he bustled in with cognac and Harry's favorite Guinness. </p><p>"She is visiting her family," Snape informed him. </p><p>"She got the pass?" </p><p>"Yes, one of the first hundred to!" Dumbledore said happily, betraying no evidence that he must have pulled a string or two to ensure it. Harry exchanged a knowing, long-suffering glance with Snape. </p><p>Similar views on Dumbledore's machinations had once led them to Snape's bed. It had not been a terrible place, all said and done. They simply were antithetical to each other, outside the occasional unity when Dumbledore acted weird.  </p><p>It had lasted two weeks in the aftermath of the Christmas Tuesday Accord. Quick assignations, clumsy and needful. Who they had once been to each other had stood in their way. Snape lived off on guilt and Harry lived off on making Snape feel guilty. Still, it had not been too bad. Harry had been trying to work up the courage to ask to be fucked, but Snape had got cold feet by then. Snape had sworn off men, decided to get over himself, and went on to pay court to Minerva. They had been obscenely happy ever since, much to Harry's dismay. And Harry! Harry had to buy a wishing pot and stir clockwise. </p><p>"Anyone we know in their hundred?" Harry asked curiously. </p><p>"A Lestrange spawn!" Snape said, stealing a beer from Harry's stash. Dumbledore, despite his supply of Guinness, could not bide the stuff. Neither could Minerva. Must be a pureblood thing. Harry and Snape were usually the ones to slum it. Hermione! She brewed her own beer. She toured microbreweries. She knew all about hops. </p><p>"How charming! I have not seen any in my nightmares for a few years now," Harry muttered, suppressing a shudder as he thought of Bellatrix's killings during the peak of the war.  </p><p>She had led an operation to capture Minerva. The Ministry had signaled that they expected to see her corpse show up in the Thames. Then Voldemort had asked for negotiations. He wanted an accord and the war over. He had not even fought hard with Dumbledore during the discussions. He could have won, in a few years, unless Dumbledore and Harry had managed to obtain funding for their cause from the Americas. Perhaps Voldemort had simply wanted it over. </p><p>So they had ended up with a wall of magic through half of the country, at the old Anglo-Scottish line by the Firth of Forth. Not a hair on Minerva had been harmed. When asked, she had said that the experience had been less unpleasant than a night at the Hog's Head. </p><p>Families had been torn apart on Christmas Eve, by poor planning and adhoc emergency legislations. It spoke to Ministry priorities that the export and import controls over fish and fishing rights had taken precedence over civilian restrictions. It had taken decades, but the two governments had finally begun the process of reducing civilian border controls. A few years ago, they had formally appointed ambassadors and established embassies in Glasgow and in London.  </p><p>"Shall we be expecting a companion for our Boxing Day dinner, Harry?" Dumbledore queried politely, as if he was not the world's nosiest prick. </p><p>"I am working on it," Harry replied flatly. </p><p>"Your arms must be tired from stirring clockwise," Snape remarked, unusually tactful. Harry had bitten his head off on past occasions whenever he had made deprecating comments about Harry's lack of game.    </p><p>"How did you do it?" Harry lamented. "How did everyone else manage?"<br/>
 <br/>
"Severus carried a torch for Minerva from his schooldays. It was the tartan, I suspect," Dumbledore said, laughing. </p><p>"It was not the tartan!" Snape exclaimed. </p><p>"Was it the biscuits then?" Dumbledore asked. </p><p>"It was not the bloody biscuits." </p><p>"Hang on!" Harry said, struck by epiphany. "I had been wearing tartan that night!"  </p><p>"I had been wearing tartan the night he decided to direct his amorous affections unto me. Christmas of 1991. Fond memories!" Dumbledore said peaceably. Snape had buried his face in his hands. Harry was too shocked to say a word.<br/>
 <br/>
"Really, Snape?" Harry managed finally. </p><p>"We were drunk. I did not think you remembered, Albus!" </p><p>"I find the pensieve memories inspiring," Dumbledore said cheerfully, to both Harry's and Snape's mortification. </p><p>"Anyone else?" </p><p>"Oh, Severus has had the occasional lapse in heterosexuality for a week or two, as one often does, I am told." </p><p>"Says the man gayer than a bucket of dead parrots!" Snape rejoined. </p><p>Harry had had the longstanding suspicion that Snape was that kind of gay, the kind that fucked men from May to September and stayed strictly on the heterosexual side of the line otherwise. </p><p>"Is this a Slytherin thing?" He asked curiously. </p><p>"I attribute it to growing up in the seventies," Dumbledore said lightly. "All that Warbeck on the radio left the teenagers confused and repressed." </p><p>"And what were you listening to? Berserkers?" Snape asked irritably. "You are fucking a centaur, Albus!" </p><p>"Conjugal relations with my husband is hardly comparable to run-of-the-mill, tawdry copulation," Dumbledore chastised him. </p><p>Dumbledore claimed that he had married Firenze. Their laws did not allow homosexual marriages. Perhaps it was some druidic ritual in the Forbidden Forest involving naked dances and chanting to the moon. Harry did not want to imagine Bane solemnizing that farce. </p><p>What did it matter? Dumbledore was obscenely content with the state of affairs. Firenze had worn a smile once or twice after falling in with Dumbledore. Ron and Hermione wrote erotic fan-fiction for the Witch Weekly about this romance as a highly-rated running novella. A part of their royalties went to Dumbledore, who insisted that being a muse was hard work.  </p><p>----</p><p>The next time Harry heard from Hogwarts, it was an invite to Boxing Day dinner. </p><p>After trudging through the familial joys of the Weasley Christmas, where so many had asked him how his love life was progressing, and offered him cake and sympathy, Harry had had it! </p><p>At least, Minerva would be back. And she would keep the others from prying into Harry's continued failure on the dating front. </p><p>So he put on his finest tartan, as had become tradition, and went to Hogwarts.</p><p>He found Dumbledore chatting merrily with a young woman, who seemed to be of Rose's age or thereabouts. An old student? Curly-haired, bobbing her head vigorously at Dumbledore's comments, she reminded him abruptly of a young Hermione in Flitwick's class. </p><p>"Harry! Just the man I was speaking of! Come here, won't you?" Dumbledore beckoned. </p><p>Pasting on a warm smile that he had learned over decades of public relations, he made his way to Dumbledore's side.</p><p>"Delphini Lestrange," Dumbledore introduced the girl. "She is the Chief Healer at St. Mungo's now. Youngest ever to hold the role, I am told."  </p><p>She was a slip of a girl, with none of Bellatrix's curves. She had her mother's face, though, pretty and strong-featured. When Harry shook her slim hand, she blushed. </p><p>"Unused to handsome gay men, are we?" Harry teased her. "None on that side of the wall, I heard." </p><p>"Certainly the reason why I clamored to visit," she admitted. Her accent reminded him of Narcissa's. </p><p>She couldn't be all that bad, if she had escaped the worst of her mother's traits. Was Bellatrix alive? She was not one to sit idle in peace. Harry half-suspected that she must have been killed by the more moderate factions soon after the Christmas Accord.</p><p>"How is your mother?" Dumbledore asked then. "She was a dab hand at Charms, when she had been a student here." </p><p>And then she had gone on to use the Unforgivables exclusively. Harry did not think Bellatrix's academic record was particularly riveting.   </p><p>"She heads the Aurors," Delphini replied. Hesitantly, she added, "She does not approve that I came."</p><p>"I can imagine," Harry said, laughing, as he thought of Bellatrix's opinions. Delphini seemed normal. Perhaps Narcissa had reared this one from the cradle. </p><p>"And your father?"</p><p>"He is traveling," Delphini said, and she looked as Rose would whenever she was upset with Ron. "He said he would be home for the New Year, but he detoured then to Wuhan." She shrugged. </p><p>"Wuhan?" Dumbledore asked sharply. "In China?" </p><p>"He told me to be wary of your questions!" she said, laughing. </p><p>Dumbledore grinned and took her arm courteously, and led her to the feasting table. Snape gave her a wide berth, Harry noticed. So Dumbledore seated her between Minerva and Flitwick. She mingled easily, unlike any Malfoy or Lestrange Harry had had the misfortune to know. </p><p>"So?" Snape asked him.</p><p>"So?" Harry queried. "She seems less maladjusted than a child of Bellatrix's should be." </p><p>"Didn't you recognize her lips?" </p><p>Harry blinked at that and watched the girl. </p><p>"She does not have Bellatrix's lips," he assessed. Bellatrix Lestrange's bee-stung cocksucker lips were distinctive. </p><p>"She has the Dark Lord's lips!" Snape whispered. </p><p>"Oh!" Harry gasped. Dumbledore's attention made sense then. He was not one to go out of his way to invite a Lestrange to Boxing Day feast, out of the hundred who had been issued visitor passes to cross the wall.  </p><p>"He fucked Bellatrix and cuckolded Lestrange, just as the rumors said!" Harry exclaimed, horrified. </p><p>Silence fell at the small table. Snape was glowering at him. Minerva's stare conveyed utter disapproval. The girl looked mortified. Dumbledore cleared his throat and engaged her in conversation once more. </p><p>Later, as the guests began dispersing, Dumbledore led her to where Minerva, Snape, and Harry stood. </p><p>"Perhaps a nightcap in my rooms?" Dumbledore suggested. </p><p>The girl seemed uncomfortable, blushing whenever she met Harry's gaze. He ought to apologize. There was no proforma for these mishaps, he rued. Dumbledore ushered them to his office.</p><p>"Come on, then," Minerva said, coaxing. "I suspect you may not remember me, Miss Lestrange."</p><p>"Aunt Narcissa told me about you. You are the reason the war ended!" Delphini said brightly. She turned to look at Snape. "She told me about you too. She said you saved Draco on so many occasions."  </p><p>"It was my job," Snape glowered, though he seemed pleased enough to those who could read him well. "How is Cissy?"</p><p>"Spending Malfoy money on dresses and parties," Delphini said, laughing. </p><p>"Not changed a whit, then," Snape said, shaking his head. </p><p>Delphini was dressed plainly in woolen robes. She did not seem to have inherited Narcissa's taste in clothing and jewelry. Perhaps this was merely since she was visiting and wanted to be seen as proper and responsible. Perhaps she was bathing in champagne at home. </p><p>"Cognac? Firewhiskey? Beer? What is your poison?" Dumbledore asked her, as he went about pouring scotch for Minerva and him, and then threw cans of Guinness to Harry and Snape. </p><p>"I don't drink unless there is another Healer on duty," she replied. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. </p><p>"I suspect nobody shall need you to Heal them tonight. Madam Pomfrey is quite capable," Minerva pointed out.  </p><p>"Beer, please. Guinness! Oh, I can never find them outside the Muggle markets at home," Delphini said enthusiastically. </p><p>There was a flourishing black market on both sides of the wall, smuggling in and out contraband that slipshod legislation had missed regulating. Guinness and Scotch went south while various song records, cigarettes, and confectionary items were smuggled north. To avoid policing in the wizarding high-streets, the artifacts were sold on the Muggle markets by Muggleborns. </p><p>"I still cannot understand why they cared only about the fisheries!"</p><p>"Neither can I," Harry admitted. </p><p>"There were reasons!" Minerva intervened. "Fish and chips was our lifeblood."</p><p>"We should have negotiated scotch and marmite too!" Dumbledore rued. </p><p>"And beer!" Delphini chimed in. </p><p>The negotiations had been conducted speedily on Christmas Eve. For some reason, Cornelius had cared only about the fish. That bastard was a teetotaler. </p><p>"Harry did not mean to offend you," Minerva said carefully, smoothing over the diplomatic mess Harry had caused at dinner.  </p><p>"Yes," Delphini replied. "I have heard from Draco that Mr. Potter puts his foot in his mouth." She blushed, but managed to sound playful rather than embarrassed.</p><p>Coming from Draco, it could have been worse. He must have wanted to spare his young cousin the slurs he excelled at calling Harry. Hadn't Ron and Harry curbed their name-calling around Rose and Hugo? </p><p>"Is that what Draco calls Potter's lack of sense these days?" Snape asked wryly.</p><p>"Scorpius, Draco's son, is a fan of Harry. He collects contraband Firebolts," Delphini shared. </p><p>The idea of a young boy across the wall being fond of him was baffling to Harry. Yet, weren't there many who adored Griselda, the extraordinarly competent minister on the other side of the wall?  </p><p>"Do you have children, Mr. Potter?" She continued curiously. </p><p>Oh, no, not this again! </p><p>"He is still trying to find the one," Dumbledore remarked. "Perhaps the search must extend to the other side of our wall." </p><p>When Harry had complained that he had run out of matches in his wishing pot, he had not meant that literally! </p><p>For a young girl, she handled herself well in new company, Harry decided, as he watched her interact with Dumbledore. There was an easygoing demeanor to her, no doubt derived from the bedside manners of a Healer. She did not have Bellatrix's strange and creepy enunciation or Voldemort's inability to communicate in anything other than a monologue. </p><p>She knew to straddle the line of amiability without slipping into touchy subjects. She had been raised on the other side of the wall after the war. So perhaps it was easier for her to avoid discussing old griefs and strife. She discussed music and healing, and her fondness for gerbils. </p><p>"Firenze shall be expecting me," Dumbledore said abruptly, when he chanced to look at the clock. It was past three in the morning. </p><p>"Harry, stay in the guest quarters? Miss Lestrange, you are welcome to stay the night at Hogwarts, if you are comfortable with the notion. Otherwise, feel free to use our Floo to return to your hotel."</p><p>"May I stay in the Slytherin dormitories?" she asked shyly, looking to Snape.  </p><p>"Why not?" Snape muttered. "Hardly will hold a candle to your hotel's bedding, but we have a vacant Prefect's room." </p><p>"Thank you!" she replied, quietly pleased. </p><p>Had Draco been the one to tell her of the Slytherin dormitories? He had never lacked for house pride. </p><p>"Perhaps Harry can take you to see the sights in the morning," Dumbledore suggested. "The Lake, the willow, the shack etcetera." </p><p>"The squid!" Delphini exclaimed. "Draco told me so many stories about the squid. May I take photographs? Scorpius would be delighted to see the Quidditch pitch!" </p><p>After Snape and Minerva led her away, Harry turned to Dumbledore, who had a faint smile on his lips. </p><p>"She seems all right," Harry offered. </p><p>"Scintillating," Dumbledore said, sphinx-like and annoying. </p><p>Had Voldemort killed Bellatrix's husband?  Or had that man been forced to raise a cuckoo child as his own? Ron and Hermione would die for this gossip! Perhaps it might even distract them sufficiently to stop quizzing Harry about his dating.</p><p>"Wuhan," Dumbledore continued, musing, and wandered away to his spindly glass instruments. <br/>
 <br/>
Harry left him to it. </p><p>-------</p><p>In the morning, at breakfast, as Harry poured Delphini coffee, as they listened distractedly to Snape and Minerva bickering, the ambassador from the South came rushing into the hall. </p><p>"Yes, Ambassador Pickering?" Dumbledore queried. </p><p>He had been speaking quietly with Firenze. If Delphini was startled by the sight of them lovey-dovey as they were, she said not a word.  </p><p>"Healer Lestrange is needed at St. Mungo's," Pickering said. </p><p>"Why?" Delphini asked, surprised. Her lassitude had been swiftly replaced by alertness, as Harry had often seen in Aurors and Healers who were ever ready for duty. "Is there an emergency?"</p><p>Pickering looked apologetic. "I was tasked with your safe return today morning, Lestrange. Come, we must hurry. The border controls take a few hours, with papers and protocols."</p><p>"Let me speak with Aunt Narcissa," Delphini said. Harry could finally see Bellatrix in how she held resolute. "Professor Dumbledore, may I use your Floo?"</p><p>"The border controls-" Pickering began.</p><p>"Albus Dumbledore can get around those," Delphini said, laughing. </p><p>"Such faith," Snape said dryly. "Albus, you seem held in higher esteem on the other side of the wall than you are here." </p><p>"That is because they don't know he is fucking a centaur," Minerva remarked. </p><p>Delphini blushed at that blunt statement, but her smile held. </p><p>"Married!" Dumbledore reiterated. </p><p>Firenze said nothing. These squabbles, he held, was beneath him. Harry wondered, as he often did, how Firenze lived at Hogwarts. Dumbledore, Snape, and Minerva lived to squabble. </p><p>-----</p><p>Dumbledore hummed and hawed, and tinkered with his instruments of glass, and then spoke to Fawkes in a language Harry was fairly sure was made-up. </p><p>"Genius at work," Harry told Delphini, who seemed puzzled. </p><p>Finally, the Floo flared, and Narcissa's face popped up, aged but still beautiful. She took in the audience and glared at Delphini. </p><p>"Cissy, dearest Cissy," Snape began. </p><p>"Don't you dear me, Severus! You promised you would return to our side! I vouched for you!"<br/>
 <br/>
"There was no scotch on your side." </p><p>"You don't even drink scotch," Narcissa hissed. "You drink Muggle beers!" </p><p>So her racism and snobbery was alive and well. </p><p>"Aunt Narcissa, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Minerva McGonagall," Delphini intervened, with introductions. "They hosted me at Hogwarts for their Boxing Day feast." </p><p>"Tell her to take photographs of the Squid!"</p><p>"Scorpius!" Narcissa said sternly. </p><p>"And of the Quidditch Pitch!" It was Draco's voice. So he had missed Hogwarts, after all. </p><p>"Draco!" Narcissa chided. </p><p>It reminded Harry of Molly scolding her errant children and grandchildren.  </p><p>"Pickering said I have to return immediately," Delphini said. </p><p>"Narcissa! Is that Delphini?" </p><p>Voldemort looked the same as he had when Harry had seen him the last time, two decades ago. If he seemed surprised by the company his daughter kept, he said nothing. </p><p>"Albus, Minerva, Severus, Mr. Potter," he said quietly. "Delphini, you must come home immediately."</p><p>"What was in Wuhan, Tom?" Dumbledore asked. The mischievous smiles he had bestowed on Delphini had vanished, leaving no trace. Now he was the man who had held off two Dark Lords. </p><p>Shocked by the change of tone, Delphini looked to Harry. He shook his head, hoping that she understood the need for caution. She was not a child raised in times of war. Her understanding of their past was abstract. </p><p>"Send her back," Voldemort said irritably. "Then we can discuss Wuhan." </p><p>Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. He was patient when he needed to be. Voldemort had not changed. He was still quick to anger, Harry saw. It amazed Harry to see the tight control that reined in his temper. For Delphini's sake, he realized.  </p><p>"There is an outbreak of a respiratory disease," Voldemort told them. "It seems similar to the SARS outbreak a decade ago. I was unable to pinpoint the source. It does not matter. There are rumors of placing the city under curfew."</p><p>"You went to collect Ming Pottery, not to track down respiratory diseases!" Delphini said, exasperated. She sounded exactly like Rose. "Were you exposed?" </p><p>"I was careful," Voldemort said, placating. "The outbreak will be widespread in a few weeks, I suspect. We need you here at St. Mungo's to coordinate our efforts."</p><p>"A potential epidemic!" Delphini said, worried. "We must have Pickering inform the Northern government too." </p><p>"An epidemic?" Dumbledore asked. He was looking at his spindly glass instruments. "You fear something worse, don't you, Tom?" </p><p>"It spreads as wildfire," Voldemort said hesitantly. "I assessed exponential growth."</p><p>"A pandemic," Snape breathed, shocked. </p><p>"The borders are open," Minerva noted. </p><p>"The borders have always been porous," Voldemort said tersely. "If it comes to either side of the border, both the governments shall have to deal with it."</p><p>"You suspect it is here, don't you?" Dumbledore asked. </p><p>"International Christmas travel has been unprecedented," Voldemort explained. "The Floo network is hardly a well-ventilated system. If it is airborne, we have it in our countries already." </p><p>"Right, well," Delphini said, looking every inch a Healer who ran St. Mungo's. "I will return immediately. However, since you suspect it is already in our midst, we should have a cross-border effort to curb its spread." </p><p>Harry was impressed by her attention to the welfare of both countries. How had she become a healer, given that crazy household that had raised her?  </p><p>"This calls for the establishment of a Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics," Dumbledore announced. </p><p>"CRUP?" Delphini asked, entertained despite the situation. </p><p>Harry groaned as Dumbledore turned to him. </p><p>"Harry, could you let the Minister know? Tell him that Albus Dumbledore appoints you to lead our delegation for the roundtable!" </p><p>"Charming," Voldemort said. "Delphini, step in, won't you?" </p><p>"Border controls-"</p><p>"It is Albus Dumbledore's Floo. Border controls shan't matter," Voldemort pointed out. </p><p>Dumbledore looked surprised by that faith in his floo-tampering abilities to get around border controls. Minerva and Snape looked terribly amused. </p><p>Delphini looked around, and said politely, "I hope to return soon, Professors, Mr. Potter, once we know that the outbreak is harmless."</p><p>"The outbreak is not harmless," Voldemort said, stepping back. "If I were you, Draco, I would invest in bodybags."</p><p>"Stop giving him investment advice," Narcissa yelled from somewhere.</p><p>Delphini shook hands with everyone and stepped through into the Floo. Harry raised his eyebrows at how Voldemort caught and steadied her on the other side. He waved to the girl before the connection flared shut. </p><p>"A pandemic?" Snape asked weakly. </p><p>"Best practice those bubblehead charms," Dumbledore said, returning to his spindly glass instruments. "Minerva, darling, what say you to investing in bodybags?"</p><p>"The board does not approve of you parking the school endowment in bonds and stocks," Minerva warned him.</p><p>"Have you seen my cryptocurrency yields?" Dumbledore exclaimed. "That rate of return the Board could not match over a hundred years of investing in fisheries!"</p><p>Fisheries were a universal choice of poor investment that governments on both sides of the wall cared about. </p><p>Haddock fared poorly against Dumbledore's bitcoin.  </p><p>Harry went to the Ministry to convince them about the need for a Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Historical Artifacts of Importance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>January 2020</em>
</p><p> </p><p>"It seems to be contained in Asia," Hermione muttered. </p><p>"What does the Ministry think?" Ron asked Harry. "What does CRUP think?"</p><p>The Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics (C.R.U.P.)  had been launched with fanfare. Cornelius and Griselda had signed papers to denote the beginning of the collaboration. The last time Fudge had taken a similar level of interest had been when negotiating fishing rights. </p><p>They convened every other day in a guard post in the wizarding conclave of Galashiels. The post was manned by the Aurors from both the governments. By the River Tweed, they huddled in an old stone chapel, warded to the gills, and watched cases bloom on charmed maps.   </p><p>"We have not seen any confirmed cases reported on either side of the wall," Harry said. "We are reliant upon symptom-based assessments, which certainly does not aid in accurate diagnosis or tracking. The Unspeakables from both governments are working actively to formulate a testing charm." </p><p>"How is the collaboration?" Hermione asked curiously. </p><p>"We have Susan, to lead our Mediwizards. A Rosier boy leads their delegation," Harry said. "Hugo's age. None of them are troublesome. Young and enthusiastic. Hardworking kids. They adore Griselda and remind me of Hermione mooning over Lockhart."</p><p>That earned him a pincushion to the head. </p><p>"Their key people are all very young, aren't they?" Ron wondered. "Hugo is still taking inventory for Fred and George!" </p><p>The southern delegation was young and considerably inexperienced compared to the northern delegation. They had had no choice, Harry suspected, but to train the next generation swiftly. Most career bureaucrats and administrators had followed Dumbledore and Fudge north. The Death Eaters had not made capable administrators. The south had plunged into a recession of unparalleled catastrophe for four years after the Christmas Accord. Voldemort had managed to weed out the costs of his blatant nepotism and set to appoint people for their competence. He had learned that lesson the hard way. He had invested in the future with considerable passion after that. It seemed to be paying off. Rumor went that he was still furious about having to privatize and auction off large portions of the fisheries. </p><p>"We are looking for a Charms expert," Harry suggested, trying to entice Hermione into working for once in her life. </p><p>Hermione rolled her eyes and muttered that she was quite happy writing erotic fanfiction about Dumbledore and Firenze with her adoring husband. She had wound up as an armchair activist who consulted for the government, and got paid obscenely for it. Twenty years in, Ron and Harry were still unsure how she had managed this feat. </p><p>-----</p><p>The next time Harry saw Delphini was in Galashiels. </p><p>She came with reams of parchment, hair in a bun, wearing an eminently sensible set of brown woolen robes and flat shoes. She had not inherited her mother's love for macabre fashion.</p><p>"We found Patient Zero!" she announced.</p><p>The roundtable waited with bated breath. In that bleak January, huddled in a stone chapel, Harry felt fate walking on his skin. His scar prickled for the first time in two decades. </p><p>"She is a resident of Cardiff. She was on the vetted list," Delphini continued, sombre. "She attended a Family Christmas Reunion in Aberdeen."</p><p>"She successfully crossed the border, spent twelve days in the north, and returned home," the Rosier boy chimed in. </p><p>There were curses about the table. Harry caught the expression of stoicism on Susan Bones's face slip. </p><p>"We traced her contacts in the south," Delphini continued. "Nine hundred is our estimate of second-order spread. She is currently isolated at St. Mungo's. It will take our Ministry at least two weeks to contact and recommend isolation to the nine hundred on our list." </p><p>Nine hundred. </p><p>By the time their Ministry traced down the nine hundred and handed isolation procedures, how many more would have come into contact? Exponential, Voldemort had projected on Boxing Day. Harry had asked Hermione what that meant, and he had not liked the answer. <br/>
 <br/>
"We can do this," Rosier chirruped, poster boy of optimism that he was. </p><p>Susan shook her head, alarmed. </p><p>-----</p><p>"We created CRUP to fix this!" Cornelius shouted, red-faced and incompetent and still elected. "So why is CRUP not fixing this? Why are you coming to me?" </p><p>"Cornelius, Susan and Harry have a point," Dumbledore intervened. "This is out of control. We have no contact tracing mechanisms. We have no charms to test and diagnose. We have no understanding of the prognosis across different segments of our population. Very few of our healers are specialized in contagious respiratory diseases. We need rapid and targeted emergency funding and recruitment initiatives."</p><p>"We should have kept the borders closed!" Cornelius blurted then. "This was Griselda's fault! She wanted to open the borders! Now we have the Southern plague!"</p><p>Susan sighed. Harry shook his head at her when she made to speak. It would not avail them. Fudge, once he was set upon a populist idea, would listen to nobody. The public ate it up. </p><p>"A lockdown-" Susan began bravely.</p><p>"Absolutely not! What will it do to our economy? And the children! Think of the children!" Fudge blustered. </p><p>"Well, what is your plan then?" Susan asked.</p><p>"I am convening an emergency meeting of my ministers! We shall vote to close the borders!"</p><p>"Perhaps you ought to warn Madam Marchbanks first," Dumbledore suggested. </p><p>"The last I looked, I was the Minister of Magic!"</p><p>"Cornelius," Dumbledore said, and the note of warning in his voice was one Fudge knew well to heed. The pompous braggart scowled and subsided in his rabble-rousing. </p><p>Who voted for him time after time? Harry had never understood this mystery.</p><p>-----</p><p>Harry accompanied Dumbledore back to Hogwarts. </p><p>"This is dangerous," Dumbledore said quietly. "Their delegation has no past experience in dealing with something of this magnitude."</p><p>"Neither does ours," Harry reminded him. The northern delegation was significantly more experienced, but they had no prior experience with managing an epidemic of this magnitude.</p><p>"We ended the gay epidemic by making it harder to have casual assignations," Dumbledore said wryly. "Yes, Cornelius's policies have been lacking, despite their popularity among the suburban voters." </p><p>Fudge's response to the AIDS crisis had been to ban gay clubs and other measures undertaken to curb sex through the community, sending it instead to the fringes. It had addressed the problem, in that no gay man went to a healer anymore if they suspected a sexual disease. Little wonder that Harry's dating adventures led nowhere. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of Dumbledore's book and find a centaur.</p><p>Harry watched Dumbledore fiddle with his glass instruments, before the Floo flared green and showed them a cluttered kitchen full of pots and pans and jars of spices. There was a half-plucked duck on the table.  </p><p>"Hello, Tom!" Dumbledore greeted. </p><p>There was clattering from another room, and then someone came forward. It was Delphini. She was in tatty pyjamas and barefoot, munching on an apple. In the light of the afternoon sun, with her hair braided into pigtails, she looked terribly naif-like. That turned Harry uncomfortable as he thought of the power dynamics between Voldemort and a young Bellatrix who must have been still in school. Lolita had been about something like that, he remembered. He needed to ask Hermione.</p><p>"Professor! You can't do this! Border controls!" </p><p>Her wand was of hawthorn, Harry noticed for the first time. What was its core? Did she know wandless magic? </p><p>The fire flared red then, with the almighty power of Bellatrix's Cruciatus. Harry pulled Dumbledore out of its way. Something on the mantel shattered. The portraits screamed murder. </p><p>If Narcissa had aged gracefully, Bellatrix had aged voluptuously. The cruel curve of her lips had become more pronounced. The streaks of white in her hair lent her the appearance of a bird of prey. </p><p>"Mum, no! The Christmas Accord, remember!"</p><p>"I am merely defending my home," Bellatrix yelled and the sparks at her wand-tip were green. "Don't tread on me!" </p><p>"Mum!"</p><p>"You look well, Bella," Dumbledore greeted her politely, as if she was not a breath away from casting the Killing Curse. He had not even drawn his wand. </p><p>"They are looking for Papa," Delphini intervened, coming between her mad mother and Dumbledore. "Professor, I shall ask him to contact you. Now, shoo!"</p><p>She cut the Floo connection and a spindly glass instrument on Dumbledore's table shattered. </p><p>"Was that expected?" Harry asked warily, wand drawn in case Bellatrix found a way to rig back the connection. She was not the most creative of terrorists, but underestimating her had not done anyone good. </p><p>"Scintillating," Dumbledore said.</p><p>In another time, Harry would have fretted that Dumbledore would attempt to use the girl against her father. Harry had changed. Two decades of grudging peace did that, he supposed. Delphini was not a child. She was twenty-five. It was not Harry's job to worry about Dumbledore's plans for her. </p><p>The Floo flared once more. Clearly, border controls no longer mattered. </p><p>"Swanage?" Dumbledore asked curiously, as he peered through the fire. "I have wanted to see that clocktower."</p><p>The clocktower Harry could see through the Floo seemed unremarkable and plain. How could Dumbledore identify a place by seeing half a clocktower through a fiery window?  </p><p>"You were fortunate that she was in a merciful mood. You barged into her house," Voldemort said irritably. </p><p>He looked as if he had been woken from sleep. Harry suspected a retired terrorist did not have a packed morning calendar in January. He was huddled in a checkered blue flannel nightshirt and a wrap of fleece, cutting a picture of quaint cosiness. It was winter, after all, even on the coast. Harry wondered if Voldemort had given up his all-black schtick after getting half the country. </p><p>"Bella possesses no mercy. You and I know that. Our charming Delphini interceded," Dumbledore said sweetly. </p><p>Harry cleared his throat. It seemed a terrible idea to open negotiations with Voldemort by referring to his daughter.  </p><p>"Tracked her, didn't you?" Voldemort continued. "How could you resist?"</p><p>"Well, you would know all about tracking, wouldn't you? I heard that your contact tracing apparatus bloomed into place without hassle, as if the Aurors had already a detailed surveillance operation established." </p><p>"Why don't you watch Cornelius run the north into a ditch?" Voldemort retorted. "I can take care of matters here." </p><p>"You can't," Dumbledore asserted. "We are in this together." </p><p>"We aren't."</p><p>"Oh, but we are! You reduced the border controls on your Floos since you knew I would contact you, didn't you?" Dumbledore queried.  </p><p>Voldemort sighed, looking plainly frazzled. He must have had a rough few weeks, Harry mused. The borders had opened. Then he had gone to Wuhan and come back with dire tidings of a disease. His daughter was on the frontline. He had finally put into place a competent administration, but they were too inexperienced to deal with the ravages of a pandemic. </p><p>"Cornelius issued a declaration to close the borders," Voldemort said. </p><p>"The borders have always been porous, as you noted correctly during our last conversation. We built a <em>Wizarding</em> Wall." Most smuggling, trafficking, and border-crossings happened through the Muggle methods of transport these days. </p><p>"Well, get rid of him," Voldemort replied, irked. "You have an incompetent government that can't even contact trace!" </p><p>"You have an inexperienced government that, despite Griselda's best efforts, is nowhere equipped to handle a pandemic without sending your economy once more into a recession."</p><p>"Your economy has been in a recession for six years!" Voldemort exclaimed. "We can wait out a few months. The lockdown seems to be effective in Wuhan in curbing the spread."</p><p>"You think this will be over within a few months?" Dumbledore asked, surprised. "Tom, you have never been an optimist." </p><p>"You and I know that it shan't be over!" Voldemort said, irked. "Nobody in the north will listen to me. They don't even listen to you. They listen to Cornelius I-Can't-Be-Arsed Fudge." </p><p>"Well, we can't terrorize and surveil our citizens as you can yours." </p><p>"Griselda does not need me to run her government," Voldemort said viciously. "Strange, is it not, that Cornelius still needs you to babysit him? He has half the country he used to have. One would think that he has outgrown his dependence on you. I wonder who stands to benefit by keeping him reliant upon you."</p><p>"Enough," Dumbledore asserted. "Tom, we need a united strategy to combat this epidemic."</p><p>"Pandemic," Voldemort corrected him.</p><p>"Tell your Ministry." </p><p>"I am not your errand boy."</p><p>Dumbledore peered down the length of his nose, over his half-moon spectacles. </p><p>"Deal with Cornelius," Voldemort said finally. "Griselda will not oppose a unified strategy."</p><p>-----</p><p>"A wand of hawthorn, isn't it?" Harry asked Dumbledore curiously afterwards, when he was taking with the Headmaster and Firenze. "What is the core?" </p><p>"What do you suspect?" Dumbledore asked, mischievous and mysterious. </p><p>Fawkes trilled. </p><p>"Surely not!" Harry exclaimed. </p><p>"Three feathers, in a lifetime," Dumbledore said softly. "One in yew, one in holly, one in hawthorn." </p><p>"Hawthorn crowns you," Firenze said abruptly, eyes fixed on Harry.</p><p>Was it an aura thing? The last time Luna had seen Harry, she had said something about an egg cracking. </p><p>"Even the Muggles, I am told, know the symbolism," Firenze remarked. "Trelawney taught you poorly."</p><p>About the only thing Firenze and Harry agreed on was Trelawney's utter incompetence.</p><p>Dumbledore chuckled and continued, "Did you know that hawthorn heals the broken heart? The blooms come to herald Spring. In our lore, they have always meant hope. The Greeks carried them in wedding processions, and offered them to the altar of Hymenaios, their deity of marriages." </p><p>Hymenaios. Hymen. Hymen was central to the virginity cult that Hermione railed against. Had Voldemort been the one to take Bellatrix's virginity? Had it been for some rite of power? Had Delphini healed Bellatrix's broken heart? Harry shuddered and suppressed that vein of enquiry. <br/>
 <br/>
-----</p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>It was Delphini, chasing after him with an armful of scrolls clutched to her chest. By the river Tweed, running clumsily with her burden, she reminded him once of Hermione running about chasing Ron and him by the Lake. </p><p>He waited up for her and conjured a satchel for her scrolls. </p><p>"Oh, thank you!" She said, blushing. "Why didn't I think of it?" </p><p>"Delphi!" Nathaniel Rosier called. The boy made eyes at her whenever she attended the cross border roundtable to provide biweekly updates from her country. Harry found it amusing how they were completely oblivious to each other's affection. It reminded him starkly of Ron and Hermione in their schooldays.  </p><p>"Go on, Nat," she yelled back. "I need to speak to Harry for a minute."</p><p>Disgruntled, he halted their delegation and came to fetch her. A streak of spell light felled him. Delphini screamed. Harry cursed and shielded her as another came to strike inches to her left. Another followed, and it was green. Harry spun her about. They were surrounded. The Aurors from both sides were reacting, but Harry knew his first priority was to get Delphini out. </p><p>Before Apparation wards rose, Harry clutched her close and Disapparated. </p><p>She had the common sense to conjure a raft, for they landed before chalky cliffs in roiling waters. Then Harry realized he was holding the dead weight of her fainted form. </p><p>Voldemort was flying over the water, and he had conjured the raft. He directed the vessel to the shore and landed beside Harry. </p><p>"She is not harmed," Harry told him, seeing the alarm on his features. The adrenaline was leaving him rapidly, and he was shivering in his drenched robes. There was pain blooming in his ribs. A spell must have caught him midway through Apparation.</p><p>Voldemort moved to take her weight. </p><p>"My house is on the cliffs," he said, and they walked up the rocky trail, supporting Delphini between them. </p><p>"Treason in the Aurors?" Voldemort asked, when they reached the cottage. </p><p>"I suspect ours," Harry admitted. The pain was manageable, he decided. It was nowhere among the worst skirmishes of his life. He could wait to get home and find Hermione.  </p><p>The spell-light had come from their side, he was sure. Fudge's populism had led to factions in the Aurors that followed him instead of following the law. Dumbledore had been concerned about that fragmentation. Harry would not be surprised if it led to a coup one day, should Fudge lose an election. </p><p>Voldemort's abode was serene. It was an old Victorian, with oaken floors and large bay windows and slanted eaves. There were Glastonbury hawthorns in bloom on the trellises. Once in May and once in December, Harry remembered. They were the only hawthorns that flowered twice in a year. He had spent a few hours reading about hawthorn after his tea with Firenze and Dumbledore.   </p><p>He helped Voldemort settle the girl into an armchair by the merry fire. He stood back and watched Voldemort's wand movements, and old griefs took him when he noticed the quiet sorrow on Voldemort's face as he tended to Delphini. Did Voldemort think at all of James and Lily? </p><p>The girl stirred then, and blinked her eyes open. </p><p>"Papa," she murmured, and sat up abruptly. "Nat!" </p><p>Voldemort caught her by the arms and said, "He is fine. You are unharmed. Harry brought you here." </p><p>"You are lying! I saw him fall!" She said, voice rising to the cusp of hysteria.</p><p>"I promise," Voldemort said. "His mother sent word."</p><p>Her panic settled and she looked about. When she saw Harry, she smiled wanly and eased back into the chair in nervous exhaustion. </p><p>"Oh, Harry, you cannot be here!" she exclaimed then. "The Minister!" </p><p>"Let me see to that," Voldemort said soothingly. "Why don't you run a warm bath? We can dine afterwards."<br/>
 <br/>
"Mum said I should guard you from Harry," she said, frowning, looking at Harry as if abruptly expecting him to turn wicked. </p><p>"Bella underestimates me," Voldemort said mildly. "Come, now." </p><p>He ushered her to her room. Harry listened to Voldemort's mellow cadence as he coaxed the girl to calm from her panic. </p><p>The adrenaline left Harry's blood. Sighing, he leaned against a stuccoed wall and closed his eyes in exhaustion. </p><p>"I need to inform Bella and Albus," Voldemort said then, emerging from Delphini's room and closing the door behind him. "There is a scrap of a Marrow Dissolving curse on you. You must have caught a sliver midway through Apparation. Shall I see to it? Otherwise, have Albus see to it."</p><p>"Dark magic," Harry spat. </p><p>It would never end, would it? For once, he agreed with Fudge. Opening the borders had been a mistake. Twenty years without spells crossed, and it had come to an end. He had hoped that Rose and Hugo, and their generation, would never know the grief of the before-times. </p><p>"Delphini uses it to treat cancer, I understand," Voldemort said quietly. "I suspect she may not agree with your assessment. However, if that is the common stance in the north, I suggest you let me see to it. Your healers may not know what to do." </p><p>That made Harry pause. It might be true. Susan Bones and her ilk had been trained to heal, not to act as dispatchers of mercy to the maimed and the poisoned in an unending war. </p><p>"Yes, if Delphini is present," he allowed. </p><p>He did not trust Voldemort, but he trusted Delphini. The girl had not a speck of malice in her. </p><p>Voldemort nodded and moved to the Floo. </p><p>"Where is she?" Bellatrix roared. Spell-light came to shatter Voldemort's chandelier, but bounced off harmlessly. "You warded it!"</p><p>"Bella, you have only shattered it twelve times!" Voldemort chided her. "Property damage does not pay for itself, you know."</p><p>"Sell your beetcoin!"</p><p>"Bitcoin," he said, in the manner of one who had explained it a hundred times before. "Delphini is well. Merely shaken. Mr. Potter got her home."</p><p>Harry smelled roast. He was hungry. He had not eaten all day, had he? It would be a long way back. The border controls! </p><p>"If he dares lay a hand on her-" </p><p>"He hasn't." </p><p>A protective mother was a protective mother, Harry mused fondly, thinking of Molly. </p><p>"If he dares kiss her ear or squeeze her breast or fondle her belly or call her sweetplum-"</p><p>There went Harry's appetite. He was about to speak, but then he remembered how demented and trigger-happy that bitch was. And he tried really hard to not wonder if Voldemort had done all those things to Bellatrix, if he continued to. </p><p>"He hasn't. He won't." <br/>
 <br/>
"Bella, stop harassing him." Another head popped up in the fire. Rodolphus. "How is Delphini?" </p><p>The concern in his voice was blazing. Harry swallowed. A cuckoo child could be loved too, then. Why had he initially assumed otherwise? Petunia had not loved her cuckoo child.  </p><p>"Let her stay the night with me. She is merely shaken." </p><p>"Narcissa <em>will</em> get your chandelier," Bellatrix muttered, scowling. "We told you not to allow her to go on these errands to Dumbledore's Mudblood slums!" </p><p>"Bella-"</p><p>"Her blood is on your hands!" </p><p>"Bella-"</p><p>"She is all I have!" </p><p>"Bella-" </p><p>"The pandemic is a hoax created by Albus Dumbledore to kidnap her! Don't you dare Bella me when he sends you a parcel of her entrails!"</p><p>"Goodnight, Bella," Voldemort said hastily. He shut down the Floo connection.</p><p>Harry did not envy Rodolphus. This explained why Voldemort had kept her as a side-piece instead of getting rid of her husband. Handling her full-time was a recipe for erectile dysfunction. Sticking your dick in crazy required strategy. Not that Harry would know. Sticking his dick in anything except that wishing pot seemed beyond his destiny. </p><p>The Floo flickered to life again. Dumbledore peered through. </p><p>"Ah, Harry! Thank you for averting a potential hostage crisis! It would have been a tragedy if anything had befallen young Miss Lestrange."</p><p>"Send those Aurors to me," Voldemort demanded. </p><p>"What have I told you about the differences between us?"</p><p>"Extradite them! We have a treaty," Voldemort held fast. "They will answer to our courts."</p><p>"Aged out of vigilante justice, have you?" </p><p>"I see you have not aged out of accusing me of incurably criminal tendencies. However did you survive twenty years without having me to spite?" </p><p>"I did not need to see you everyday to summon the well-warranted fury you incite in me." </p><p>The powerful wrath threaded into each word Dumbledore spoke would have frightened anyone else. Harry suspected that even Grindelwald had not evoked such rage in the Headmaster. </p><p>Voldemort exhaled sharply, trying to rein in his temper. </p><p>"The pandemic is the only reason I haven't retaliated in kind," he said. "I shan't ask again. I want those Aurors. You cannot afford a war." </p><p>Dumbledore nodded curtly.</p><p>"I shan't have Harry stuck in border controls on his way home. See to that," he said, and cut the connection. </p><p>What was this pandemic, Harry thought, that only thirty people in their countries feared? Dumbledore and Voldemort were panicking over it in a way Harry had never seen either react before, that they were willing to put aside grave hatred to unite. Cornelius considered it a political orchestration to get him out of power. Scare tactics that would cripple the economy over a flu, he had termed the recommendations of CRUP. Civilians went about their daily life unbothered. And on the extremes, there were those as Bellatrix who were calling it Dumbledore's hoax to undermine the peace of twenty years. </p><p>"I should have been more careful and heeded your warnings," Delphini said quietly, peeking her head from her room. Then she sniffed the air and remarked, "The roast needs to be taken from the range, Papa."</p><p>"You have learned, haven't you?" Voldemort asked. "The roast will keep. Come here. Harry took a Marrow Dissolving Curse. He wanted you present to curb any sadistic, malicious impulses I may have."</p><p>"Or you could see to it?" Harry asked her. She was the healer, after all. </p><p>"Oh, he is better at these things without anesthetic potions. Field medicine, you know," Delphini murmured, coming to Harry's side. </p><p>"Sit down," Voldemort ordered. </p><p>Harry sat down on the chaise. Delphini perched beside him and offered a comforting smile. Her bedside manner was impeccable. Voldemort's magic was old and well-remembered on Harry's skin, though this time it mended instead of harming. He cast silently and wandlessly, and nodded his head at Delphini, before returning to the kitchen to save the roast. </p><p>She muttered a few charms with her wand of hawthorn, and confirmed brightly, "All clear! Excellent work, as always. Exceeds expectations, Harry?" </p><p>"If you say so," Harry said, grinning at her irrepressible spirit. "I should go back now." </p><p>A portkey? A letter from Voldemort to the Aurors at the border? Another rigged up Floo connection that sneaked about the border controls? </p><p>"Stay for dinner," Delphini said then. "The roast is outstanding. It is the only reason I sashay down to Swanage."</p><p>Harry raised his eyebrows at that invite. </p><p>"If he wanted you gone, he would have hacked the Floo network by now," she insisted. "Silence is an invitation, you know!" </p><p>Not a no is a yes, Hermione would have said. </p><p>"You remind me of Hermione Granger, one of my best friends," Harry told her. </p><p>"Draco said she is the smartest witch of your generation! She created Galleons to communicate with your group when you were under surveillance!" </p><p>Draco seemed to have mellowed out, or at least had learned to curb his tongue around impressionable cousins. </p><p>"We are eating in the kitchen tonight," Voldemort called out. </p><p>"He is just lazy to set the dining table," Delphini murmured, and took Harry's hand before leading him to Voldemort's kitchen. </p><p>The kitchen's many-paned bay windows overlooked the cliffs. The scenery was quite dramatic at night, under the full moon, at high-tide. The table was circular and had only two chairs. A roundtable, Harry thought wryly. </p><p>"I am going to fetch a chair from the dining room," Delphini announced, and vanished to undertake that exploit. </p><p>Voldemort was occupied with turning the pudding carefully to catch the drippings of fat from the roast. The aromas, complex and savory, made Harry's stomach growl. Molly made an outstanding rib roast, but she had never perfected the art of Yorkshire pudding. Hermione made an excellent pudding, but had not mastered gravy. Harry made a passing decent gravy, but could never get the roast as juicy as it ought to be. If this had been anyone other than Voldemort, Harry would have petitioned to stay for dinner. </p><p>"I can make a port-key," Harry said tentatively. He needed to find Dumbledore and launch a concerted attack of sense and sensibility on Fudge.  </p><p>Voldemort cleared his throat and stood up from where he had been hunched over the pudding. </p><p>"You saved her today," he said abruptly, evading eye-contact. "Dinner is the least I can offer you."</p><p>"That is not necessary-"</p><p>"I insist," Voldemort said, finally meeting Harry's gaze. "It is not poisoned."</p><p>Harry nodded and said nothing more. </p><p>Delphini entered with another chair and bustled about setting the table. She knew where everything was. </p><p>"My Lady Gaga mug!" </p><p>"You came back from St.Mungo's yesterday night with the mug, a stack of postmortems, and a can of beer. You were half-asleep."  </p><p>"The postmortems! I had wondered where I had left them! Excess mortality. I suspect that they may be cases of the epidemic that went undetected."</p><p>"Pandemic," Voldemort corrected her. </p><p>"Stop tempting fate! Only local outbreaks so far," she parried. </p><p>Harry and Susan suspected that the disease was in more places than they knew. Various European ministries had begun tracking increased hospitalization rates. He feared the situation would truly be a pandemic in another two or three weeks. </p><p>The roast was outstanding, juicy just as he liked it. The pudding he could write poetry to. The gravy he knew he would dream of. </p><p>"I can never get the pudding to be light and airy as this," Delphini muttered. "Are you sure there is no magic involved?"</p><p>Voldemort smiled at that, and it was the first time Harry had seen him truly pleased. </p><p>Taken aback by the novelty, Harry felt compelled to add, "This turned out better than even Molly Weasley's Yorkshire pudding." </p><p>"High praise!" Delphini exclaimed. "Griselda still raves about Mrs. Weasley's mince-pies that her husband brought to the Ministry once. Aren't you glad now that you stayed for dinner, Harry?" </p><p>How could such a wholesome creature have sprung forth from Bellatrix's womb? A cuckoo child, loved.  </p><p>"Delphi was not born of infidelity," Voldemort said abruptly. <br/>
  <br/>
Harry sat back surprised, and frowned realizing Voldemort must have garnered the gist of his musings. </p><p>"You need not explain yourself," Delphini said, placing a slim hand on Voldemort's wrist. </p><p>"No, but you enjoy his company," Voldemort replied. "I shan't let this fester."</p><p>Her grin, bashful and pleased, was a reward unto itself. Had Voldemort explained this to Nathaniel Rosier, when she had developed a crush on the boy? Had Voldemort explained this to others she had wanted to befriend? </p><p>How many times had Ron softened and yielded to please Rose or Hugo, even if what they sought went against his personal convictions often? </p><p>"I made a faux pas," Harry spoke up. "I did not mean to offend you, Delphini. It was tactlessness."</p><p>"Bella and Rodolphus needed a sperm donor. Azkaban had a policy of castration for the prisoners with sentences greater than five years." </p><p>Harry gasped, horrified. He had no urge to father a child, but merely hearing the words wracked in him a sense of profound loss. Had Sirius- </p><p>"Harry, are you all right?" Delphini asked gently. </p><p>"Yes, Black was castrated too," Voldemort answered Harry's frightened and panicking thoughts. His magic was fierce and protective in its shield about Delphini. He feared Harry's reaction and wanted to guard her from any impulsive lashing out. </p><p>"Papa, you need to work on your delivery," she said, chiding. </p><p>Her gaze was wide and concerned as she reached out to Harry with an open palm in reassurance. Harry laughed, a tad hysterical, and caught her hand in his clasp.  </p><p>"I shan't lash out." </p><p>Voldemort nodded. His shield did not ease about the girl. </p><p>"Mum says that Papa was annoyed by her search for the perfect donor. It was distracting her from work, you see. So he saw to it himself," she chirped on.</p><p>"How...efficient," Harry managed, torn between amusement and horror.</p><p>"Papa prizes optimization," she said cheerfully. "How are your options trading exploits going, Papa? Have they banned you yet? He has been shorting oil futures since the New Year!"</p><p>"Dumbledore is the only trader I know," Harry admitted, understanding not a word. "Hermione takes half our salary and invests it religiously in Apple stock. However, Dumbledore has convinced the Board to let him invest half the endowment. He trades...crypto. How he rigged up a 5G network in Hogwarts is still a mystery to all of us."</p><p>"Oh, the tales Aunt Narcissa could tell you of Papa's dogged pursuit to acquire a fiber connection!" Delphini laughed at the obvious hilarity. "I must retire now. My shift at St. Mungo's starts at dawn tomorrow." She rose to her feet. "Thank you for saving me and bringing me home, Harry." She bent to kiss Voldemort's cheek and bid them goodnight.</p><p>That left the two of them. Harry was about to bring up the matter of the port-key again, when Voldemort said softly, "A nightcap? Delphini said you prefer beer."</p><p>She prattled to Voldemort about Harry's drinking preferences? Rose liked gossiping with Ron. Hermione did not tolerate prattle. Sirius had been a patient listener, and it had not mattered if Harry's cares had been major or trivial. </p><p>"She mentioned her displeasure about the negotiations failing to account for beer," Harry said finally, settling on a conversational opening without too many mines he could foresee. </p><p>"We have to settle for this." Voldemort summoned two bottles of Kölsch and Stangen glasses. </p><p>The benefits of a strong economy, Harry rued. Reduction in exports and increase of imports of essentials had veered Fudge's economic policies to tax luxuries and to advocate for austerity. Hermione complained about how she could no longer find her fancy European cheeses unless she went to the Muggle markets. </p><p>Harry filled his glass and wondered if a toast was in order to the marvellous roast and pudding. Voldemort spoke then, "She does not understand the peril she was in today."</p><p>"You knew where to look for us." </p><p>Voldemort must have had tracking spells on her. </p><p>"I would not have made it in time," Voldemort admitted. "Bella had warned me of the danger." He cleared his throat and stared at the beer he had not yet sipped once of. "I am indebted to you, Mr. Potter."</p><p>Scintillating, Dumbledore would say, if Harry reported this to him. Harry stared at Voldemort's hands, at how they were suspended in forced relaxation, betrayed by their stillness. Harry remembered him well enough to know that his hands were rarely at rest. </p><p>"Harry," he said quietly. "My name is Harry." <br/>
    <br/>
------</p><p>The port-key was a hawthorn bloom. The fragrance of it clung cloying in Harry's Aberdeen flat. </p><p>He found no sleep that night, as he tossed restlessly thinking of Ron and Rose, of Sirius, of what Azkaban had done to Sirius. Harry may not want children of his own, but Sirius had. Had he loved Harry fiercely because of what had been done to him in the name of retributive justice? Would Sirius have asked Remus for assistance if he had found a woman to have a child with? </p><p>------</p><p>"I have quite enough to do!"</p><p>"No, you don't," Harry said irritably, chasing Snape through a meandering column of cauldrons that he was grading. "Do you even review these? I have always suspected that you toss a coin." </p><p>"The fine art of teaching is lost on you."</p><p>"I wonder why!"</p><p>"You are not helping your case."</p><p>"I have given up trying to make you see reason. I am going to ask Dumbledore to guilt you into it."  </p><p>"So quick to give up! You have not even attempted to persuade me!" </p><p>"I wore tartan today," Harry pointed out. </p><p>"You are twenty years older," Snape muttered. "Perhaps your charms have worn off. It happens, you see, when all you have to offer is the nubility of youth. I recommend acquiring a more...affable personality." </p><p>"Affable?" Harry laughed. "Snape, you slept with Dumbledore! You sleep with Minerva! I don't think affable is what gets you going." </p><p>"Well, Miss Lestrange prefers the affable sort, I speculate."  </p><p>"She is only Rose's age!" Harry exclaimed. Then he thought better of his protest when Snape glowered at him. "She doesn't have a cock," he amended.</p><p>"Strange," Snape said, lowering his voice to a hush. Harry leaned in. This was Snape's conspiratorial tone, inviting collusion and dirty confidences. "He was not one for women. It was one of those open secrets everybody knew in those circles once."</p><p>Snape's eyes narrowed, as he read Harry's expression with his customary astuteness.</p><p>"Tell me," he demanded. </p><p>Twenty-five years after his first brush with Occlumency, Harry had finally mastered the art of keeping Snape out of his head. </p><p>"Join C.R.U.P. and you can pluck all these secrets from our friends at the roundtable. They are young and impressionable, spoon-fed tales of your valor by Draco Malfoy. It will be Christmas once again, to harvest secrets from their inexperienced minds."   </p><p>Snape scowled, but did not refuse. It was as good as yes. A lack of refusal was consent. Harry had learned from Hermione and her hustling. </p><p>----</p><p>"Your cares weigh heavy upon you," Firenze declared, when Harry entered Dumbledore's office. </p><p>Before Harry could even begin to construct a reply, he was saved by familiar bootsteps clattering up the stairs. </p><p>"Harry, Firenze," Dumbledore walked in, harried. "Susan Bones wants the Minister to make a formal announcement about the virus, and declare recommendations to the public. The readouts from today predict that we have only tracked down twenty percent of the cases on this side of the wall."</p><p>Exponential growth. </p><p>"The Muggle governments are detecting spikes, compared to the previous week," Harry noted. "It is still contained in a few cities. The European Magical Consortium have begun tracking trends at their International Floo Hubs." </p><p>"If Tom called it a pandemic, it very well will turn out to be one," Dumbledore said, sombre. "He is unlikely to be wrong, given his exhaustive researches. He began taking an active interest in understanding and managing infectious diseases that cross from the Muggle world to ours, after one of his associates was crippled by polio."</p><p>Wizards feared death in war or from colorful causes as rabid gnome bites or sentient bins. Infectious diseases that killed; this was uncommon in Trelawney's helpful predictions about how everybody was going to die. How had she failed to foresee a pandemic? It was time to rinse those teacups.</p><p>Polio. It was one of the vaccines Petunia had dragged him to, alongside Dudley. Had Voldemort begun developing propaganda after his minion had been crippled by a 'Muggle' disease?  </p><p>"Was the Minister convinced by your arguments about the need to escalate protection protocols at the roundtable site, given the presence of Miss Lestrange at their meetings?" Firenze enquired. </p><p>"Cornelius does not think the adult daughter of Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange requires additional protection," Dumbledore said wryly. </p><p>"Wizards cannot see past the end of their toes."</p><p>"Past the end of their nose," Harry corrected Firenze. </p><p>"You are merely justifying my point," Firenze replied calmly, unearthly and odd as he ever was. Harry tried not to imagine him in bed with Dumbledore. Bed? Stable? He did not want to know.  </p><p>"Voldemort takes her safety seriously," Harry mentioned. "The Minister doesn't need to know more than that." </p><p>And Bellatrix was perfectly capable of starting a war all by herself.  </p><p>"I see that you have learned to keep secrets," Dumbledore commented, perceptive as always. </p><p>Harry had not told even Ron and Hermione about the circumstances behind Delphini's birth. </p><p>"It is not the girl's fault," he said carefully. </p><p>"Indeed," Dumbledore said, beaming. </p><p>It had not been James's or Lily's fault. It had not been Harry's fault. It had not been Sirius's fault. It had not been the Longbottoms's fault. </p><p>Voldemort had thanked him, at that small kitchen table, by the many-paned windows that had looked over Swanage Bay. James had stood between Harry and a murderer. After that night in Swanage, Harry knew Voldemort would do the same for Delphini.</p><p>And he suspected that Dumbledore knew this too. </p><p>"I don't want her harmed," he said fiercely. </p><p>Let that cycle end. </p><p>"Hawthorn crowns you," Firenze reiterated. </p><p>He did not know what that meant. Taking a deep breath, he asked Dumbledore, "Why did Voldemort allow her to cross the border? Why did he allow her to be the face of their efforts to curb the virus? She will always be a target." </p><p>"Allow?" Dumbledore mused, bestowing upon Harry one of his irksome sphinx smiles. "Miss Lestrange does not seem to be of the ilk that seeks approval. She reminds me of you."</p><p>"I could take care of myself," Harry pointed out, before Dumbledore got started on all the instances when Harry had defied orders. </p><p>----</p><p>Harry returned home to Aberdeen to find Hermione reading on his sofa.<br/>
 <br/>
When she saw him step out of the Floo, she scowled and threw the Daily Prophet at him. </p><p>"What is it?" </p><p>"She has his lips!" She inhaled and reared up for a tirade when she saw through Harry's poor attempt at dissimulation. "Why didn't you tell me?" </p><p>"She isn't like them," he said tiredly, collapsing at the feet of the sofa and tipping his head back to rest on her lap. "She isn't like any of us who fought."</p><p>"Like Rose and Hugo," Hermione breathed. </p><p>"Like Rose and Hugo," Harry admitted. </p><p>Harry, Ron, and Hermione, had agreed to raise Hugo and Rose without grilling into them paranoia about their neighbors on the other side of the wall. Molly and Arthur had supported the decision. </p><p>Beyond the wall, Draco had told Scorpius and Delphini about firebolts and Giant Squids. He had told them stories of the smartest witch of his generation, of Harry's feats on the pitch, of Snape's valor. None of their family had gainsaid his version of history.</p><p>Their children had not been raised in fear. Their children had not been raised to hate.  </p><p>----</p><p>Delphini was cheerful the next time Harry saw her. Armed with a heap of scrolls, she settled beside Rosier as Susan opened the meeting. </p><p>"We have begun preliminary researches in understanding the disease, to learn how to cure it," Susan started.  </p><p>"Is that the right approach, given the magnitude of what we face?" Delphini interjected. "It will be a more judicious use of our resources to learn how to reduce transmission first, to control the spread. That will buy us time to invest in eradication, via cure or inoculation."</p><p>Harry paid close attention to the Ministry lackeys from both sides. The Aurors for their delegation had been replaced on Dumbledore's insistence by Kingsley's contingent. Bill Weasley had been appointed as the Special Investigator to review the Aurors who had been on duty on the day of the attack. </p><p>If Hermione could pinpoint Delphini's ancestry from her dim memory of Tom Riddle's school era photographs, there would be many others who must have made the association.  Hatred for Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter was a motivator, but Harry suspected that the attackers were looking for revenge on Voldemort. </p><p>----</p><p>Harry had nipped out to the loo when he noticed Delphini by the riverside, under a giant oak, scribbling away feverishly. After giving her updates, she usually waited for Rosier and they returned together. Her Auror detail, Harry easily picked out. Inexperienced, he thought, reviewing their hiding places. He was glad that Kingsley was there. </p><p>She caught sight of him then, and waved. Grinning, he went to join her. <br/>
 <br/>
"Mum is furious," she muttered. "I have at least twenty Aurors on my detail now." She shook her head tiredly. "I hate Susan Bones!"</p><p>"Susan? Why?"  Susan was a sane and sensible witch. </p><p>"She treats me with condescension. Yes, I don't have her experience, but I run St. Mungo's! It is larger than any hospital she has ever managed!" She scowled, reminding Harry unfavorably of Bellatrix. "I wish she took me seriously," she continued. "I am right, I know! Wasting time trying to find a cure when we have the virus running rampant is foolish!"</p><p>Now she reminded Harry of himself, of how he had once ranted to Sirius about Dumbledore's secret-keeping. </p><p>"Everybody on your side thinks I got here because of nepotism," she said grumpily. "So now I have to prove myself all over again! I didn't have to come, you know! I could have sent somebody else! I just wanted-"</p><p>She trailed off, pensive and miserable. </p><p>"You wanted to do the right thing," Harry completed for her.  She nodded glumly.</p><p>"When I told Mum and Aunt Narcissa and Draco, they warned me how I would be perceived," she said quietly. "Papa said if I believed that cooperation was the right thing to do, I ought to try."</p><p>Voldemort had never shied away from fighting for his convictions, no matter how evil or wrong those had been.</p><p>Ron had often pep-talked Rose into applying for jobs that she wanted to work at, but feared that she might be found unqualified for. Imposter syndrome, Hermione had called it.</p><p>"I think this will worsen before it gets better, Harry. It is still in our power to control the degree to which this worsens. I need to try. We need to try."  </p><p>"We are trying," Harry told her. "It is the right thing to do. And it is working. Susan will come around. Give her a day or two. She is running ragged with the demands from the Ministry and from the hospitals."</p><p>"Papa thinks we are not moving fast enough." </p><p>"It is the best it can be. We divided a country and negotiated over fishing rights at Christmas twenty years ago, Delphini. Cornelius is dealing with the worst recession on record, and up for election in a few months. Susan is doing her best to keep C.R.U.P free of political ambitions and divisions." </p><p>"Do they-" she bit her lip and shook her head. </p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Do they hate him across the wall? Mum said they would lynch me if they knew."</p><p>Knowing Bellatrix, the descriptions must have been more colorful and frightening. </p><p>"Do they speak his name in your country?" Harry asked. </p><p>"Only your Headmaster calls him by that name now, I think." She scrunched her nose thoughtfully. "Our people call him Voldemort. I have never asked him if that is what he wants."</p><p>Voldemort did not seem the chatty type, from the little Harry had seen. Perhaps he was less taciturn when in familiar company. </p><p>"He didn't need to care," she said abruptly. "Some bodily materials for an impregnation potion. These arrangements are not uncommon among friends in pureblood circles. There is no assumption of responsibility or claim afterwards."</p><p>Voldemort was not a pureblood. He had not been able to walk away. </p><p>"It was in the middle of a war. Papa...he is an orphan. He did not want that for me."</p><p>Then Voldemort had negotiated an end. He had begun a war over a child of prophecy. He had ended that war for another child. Had Trelawney seen this too? </p><p>There had been fireworks in the wizarding world after Harry's parents had died, after Harry had been deposited at Petunia's door. It had marked the end of war. </p><p>There had been fireworks in the wizarding world after the Christmas Accord, after the wall had risen. It had marked the end of war. </p><p>Bellatrix's obsession with Voldemort had oiled the rumor-mills ever since the first war. There had been rampant speculation that it was a requited obsession full of hardcore sadism. Many would be quicker to attribute Delphini's conception to rape than to anything as prosaic as the truth.</p><p>"It was a terrible time," Harry offered. "I am glad that Voldemort valued your welfare over the war."</p><p>An orphanage. Petunia's cupboard. No child should know those terrors. Did Voldemort think of James and Lily when he made those choices? </p><p>Hatred had drained Harry once. At twenty, standing alone in the Slytherin corridors with only his clothes on his back, with Snape's scarf about his neck, with a pair of mittens Minerva had given him, wearing socks Dumbledore had knitted, Harry had found himself drained of hate. After that day, he had returned to Ron and Hermione, and told them that he had decided to stop mourning. He meant to live.  </p><p>If living meant stirring the pot clockwise until his arms tired, if living meant being gently mocked by his friends for his dating failures, if living meant drinking with Minerva, Snape and Dumbledore on Saturday nights, if living meant helping Ron and Hermione edit their porn about a centaur and a headmaster, Harry was all for it. </p><p>Twenty years later, he stood by the River Tweed with Delphini, as they fought a pandemic together.</p><p>"We had a chapter in Runes about your scar," Delphini said then. </p><p>Harry's scar, Firenze said, was the rune for the yew-tree. </p><p>The oldest yew tree known to the wizarding world was in Scotland, in Perthingshire. Titus Fortingall had fled south after the Christmas Accord. His estate had been seized by the government and they had wanted to turn it to a hospital. Dumbledore had petitioned to leave the tree intact, calling it a historical artifact of importance. Voldemort's wand had come from that tree. </p><p>The scar on Harry's head, covered by his fringe for more than twenty years, was a historical artifact of importance. He was grateful that he had not inherited receding hair from James. </p><p>At Hogwarts, they taught of the scar in Defense Against the Dark Arts. It was the power of a mother's love. Lily's picture in that textbook had been taken at her wedding by Remus. She was laughing, in James's arms, with her hands placed protective over her stomach. </p><p>Rose and Hugo were older than Lily had been when she had died for Harry. </p><p>"What did they teach you about my scar in Runes?" </p><p>"That it was the power of a mother's love."</p><p>----</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Old Harry Rocks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>March 2020</em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The C.R.U.P. update to the Minister had become harder to arrange since the Secretary prioritized matters in order of importance and Percy Weasley refused to believe that a pandemic was at their doorstep. </p><p>"Well? What alarmist news do you have for me?" Fudge asked portentously, twiddling his thumbs, hair floppy without his bowler hat. </p><p>Percy was not even pretending to take notes at the meeting, instead occupying himself with reading the Daily Prophet. Harry and Susan exchanged a shared glance of misery and she nodded to him. </p><p>Fudge may hate C.R.U.P., but he had always liked Harry's attention. Twenty years and four elections later, Fudge was still enamored with the idea of Harry endorsing his campaign. </p><p>"The first death was confirmed in Essex," Harry told Fudge. </p><p>"And the evidence?" </p><p>Evidence? </p><p>"You keep telling me that we have no way of accurately confirming if it truly was a case of this serenavirus! And these are You Know Who's people. They lie about everything. Have you seen their press? They report their economy is doing excellently, that their unemployment rates are at record lows! Lies! All lies! Fabricated to make me look unappealing! So that our people will call for a reunion! We must protect them from Southern Propaganda! I don't doubt that the serenavirus virus exists, but neither do I doubt that they are exaggerating its consequences! They are using it as a tool to undermine our national happiness by destroying my public goodwill!"</p><p>"Coronavirus," Susan rejoined. </p><p>Fudge waved his hand irritably. </p><p>"Our American Ambassador told me to ban arrivals from China and Iran." </p><p>"Banning Floo travel is not going to aid us. We are geographically connected to the South."</p><p>"Tell your CRUP friends to ban travel there," Fudge continued. "If they refuse to, we have a wall for that."</p><p>"A Wizarding Wall," Harry reminded him.</p><p>"Anyone who crosses the border via Muggle transportation should be apprehended and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."</p><p>"Minister, we cannot hope that banning Floo travel from a select set of countries will curb the spread."</p><p>"Ban all foreigners for a week then! Except the Quidditch folks. We have to think of the children."</p><p>"The virus is here," Harry told him flatly. "It is spreading. There are reasons to suspect that we have had our first case of mortality already, even if it was not postmortemed to this cause." </p><p>"We can't have people dying of a no-name virus! Harry, this is an election year! What do you need? I can give you more Aurors!"</p><p>"Cornelius," Harry tried to channel Dumbledore's tone that was often effective in getting Fudge to listen. </p><p>Fudge fell silent. </p><p>Oh, it worked! </p><p>"We need you to hold a press conference. We need you to tell the civilians. We need you to issue recommendations."</p><p>------</p><p>"You all right?"</p><p>Harry shrugged, remaining where he was on Ron's and Hermione's lumpy couch. They could afford to replace it with one of those fancy pull-out sofa-bed thingies, but Ron claimed that in this house they Bought It For Life. The contrast between Hermione's hi-tech study and the rest of the house was stark.</p><p>Ron flipped the unmute button for the telly. </p><p>"Therefore, I, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, do hereby declare that we shall immediately bar all foreign arrivals in our sovereign nation. Every citizen shall take adequate precautions in the coming weeks to defenestrate this plague! No holidays to the Continent, no travel to Muggle areas where the serenavirus runs rampant!" <br/>
 <br/>
"What about the Wall?" </p><p>"We shall not be issuing more border passes until the situation is clear." </p><p>"What can you tell us about the spread of the virus in the country?" </p><p>"There is no spread! There is no need to be alarmed. We have the situation under close monitoring."</p><p>"If the South does not enforce the same restrictions, how will we account for unregistered traffic between the countries?" </p><p>"Illegal traffic, you mean," Fudge tittered. "We established The Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics to control illegals carrying the virus. Harry Potter is leading this!"  </p><p>"FML, right?" Hugo said, from where he was flopped in an armchair idly playing on his tablet. </p><p>"Except there are no fucks given!" Rose chirped. "Stir harder, Harry!"</p><p>"Language," Ron said, though he looked terribly pleased as he beamed down at his two gremlin children as they made fun of Harry's lot in life.</p><p>"We can't all be young and hot," Harry muttered. </p><p>"You have that silver fox thing going for you," Hermione called from the kitchen, over the sound of the blender. Her açaí power-smoothie for the morning. "Stop dyeing your hair!"</p><p>Harry refused to stop dyeing his hair! It was not his fault that the first greys had come in his early twenties. Childhood malnutrition and all the stress of being a madman's target had not done him any good in the looks department. </p><p>"Witch Weekly says that middle-aged men with salt and pepper hair are a catch," Ron commented, muting the telly once more. </p><p>"With Weekly also runs a flagrantly terrible novel on human-centaur relations," Hugo pointed out. </p><p>"That pays for your internet," Hermione said, bustling in with her smoothie. "You can criticize us when you stop living in our basement!"</p><p>"At your age-" Ron began to sermonize. </p><p>"Don't even start, Dad!"</p><p>Harry wondered where Delphini lived. She had a room of her own in Swanage. She had referred to Bellatrix's residence as home. Had she been one of those children raised on the weekdays by one parent and on the weekends by another? How did Rodolphus fit into the picture? </p><p>Susan Bones had started living in the Glasgow Magical Malady Center, on a tiny cot in the pantry behind her office. Harry himself had begun spending his nights either crashing in Galashiels in the Auror dormitories, or on Ron's and Hermione's nasty sofa. Tired and stressed as he was, he could not bring himself to go to his Aberdeen flat for a few hours of shuteye before returning to work at C.R.U.P.  </p><p>His back complained. He was getting too old for this. </p><p>"Sell some of my Apple stock, Hermione," he told her. "Buy a new sofa!"</p><p>"In this house, we buy it for life," Ron decreed. </p><p>"Macrumors.com says that Apple is making their own chips now! I am not selling our stock. HODL."</p><p>"HODL?" Harry asked, wondering if this was new stock slang she had picked up from Dumbledore. Dumbledore or Reddit. It was a fair toss between them. Hugo held that Dumbledore <em>was</em> the Reddit hive mind. </p><p>"Hold on for dear life!" </p><p>Luna came on the telly then, carrot-earringed and many-bangled. Fudge hated her telly ratings. Ron unmuted again.</p><p>"We have obtained a verified leak from one of the C.R.U.P. members that the first death from the Coronavirus has been reported at Glasgow. The wizard was a forty-year old who had returned from a Mediterranean cruise."</p><p>"Hold on for dear life," Rose said.</p><p>------</p><p>The emergency C.R.U.P. meeting had turned into an emergency C.R.U.P. sleepover. Harry sighed and went to make another pot of coffee at the little canteen. </p><p>"Oh, you look so tired, Harry," Delphini murmured, as she entered the canteen and rummaged through the pantry for anything edible. </p><p>Even Delphini, who had all of a young Hermione's energy, looked at the end of the tether. The situation across Europe was worsening. Most Western European Ministries had started reporting a three-fold increase in suspected cases.   </p><p>"We ran out of Redbull," she complained.  </p><p>Poor thing. She looked dead on her feet. There were dark circles about her eyes that had not gone away since January. St. Mungo's was trying to increase beds and intensive care units, but the spread was on track to increase hospitalization rates beyond available capacity in another four weeks. </p><p>Harry feared to think how the hospital facilities in the north would cope, since Fudge had yet once more refused to sign over additional funding despite Susan's campaigning. </p><p>Delphini yawned and blushed at the crack of her jaw, and then blushed once more as her stomach growled. </p><p>"Let us nip over to the Muggle side and get dinner," Harry fantasized. "I want pad thai."</p><p>"Pad thai!" Delphini said, eyes oozing greed. "Fudge shan't be happy." </p><p>"The Harry Potter exception." </p><p>"You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue!<br/>
If you did you'd find yourselves doing the same thing too!<br/>
Breaking the law, breaking the law!<br/>
Breaking the law, breaking the law!"</p><p>Delphini's voice could not pull off Judas Priest, but Harry was impressed that she even knew an Eighties album. </p><p>"Draco is a big fan," she explained, when she saw his surprise. "British Steel, all the way! Can we do that, Harry?"</p><p>It was too risky, given the target she had become. He shook his head and her crestfallen expression got to him. If not for border controls, he would have offered to take her to Hogwarts, where the House Elves would lay out a feast in the kitchens, or to Ron's and Hermione's, where their freezer was full of tasty junk food that Ron hoarded in anticipation of the zombie apocalypse, the Costco doomsday prepper that he had become. </p><p>"Why don't you go home for dinner?" He suggested. "Susan and Rosier are here. Come back tomorrow."</p><p>"'Kay," she said, yawning once more, nearly asleep where she stood. </p><p>He rolled his eyes and wished, not for the first time, that the C.R.U.P initiative had extended to hotel rooms. They had decided against it in the name of security, according to Kingsley. Harry suspected Fudge had blocked the proposal. </p><p>"I don't think I can get through border controls," she admitted. "I am going to crash in the Auror field office" </p><p>The procedures had made many exceptions for C.R.U.P, and were as expedited as two mutually antagonistic governments could make them be, but it took them forty-minutes of paperwork and checks each way. </p><p>"Let me walk you there," Harry offered.</p><p>It was snowing. Of course, it was snowing. After this was over, he was taking himself off to a long and luxurious vacation in the Caribbean. If Hermione refused to sell that damned Apple stock and fund his vacation, he would bloody stop editing her porn.</p><p>"Why are all the good ones gay or taken?" Delphini complained, oblivious still to Nathaniel Rosier's undying crush on her. </p><p>"You sound like Rose, Ron's and Hermione's daughter." </p><p>She straightened abruptly then from her limp puppet enaction against Harry's side. His scar prickled. He cast a shield. He wished Delphini was quicker on the draw. She still had not raised her wand. What had bloody Bellatrix taught her? </p><p>"It is all right," she told him, and ducked out of his hold. </p><p>"Delphini!" </p><p>"It is all right," she said, and moved swiftly towards the river, her flat shoes making her clumsy on the snow and the ice. Before Harry could cast a traction charm on her, the ground underneath her feet became plain concrete. </p><p>Voldemort. He had been notorious during the wars for his ability to seamlessly transfigure the natural to the manmade. Fred's and George's pyrotechnical marvels had been undone many times over by the transfiguration of the petrochemicals in the explosion to innocuous plastic. </p><p>Harry dropped his shield and followed the girl. </p><p>Voldemort was waiting under a giant ash. Neither Kingsley's Aurors nor Delphini's detail had noticed anything amiss. Wonderful. Two incompetent governments. </p><p>"Tracking my vitals again?" Delphini complained. "What was it this time? Blood glucose, I suspect. I knew I should have brought a can of Red Bull with me!" She sounded exactly as Rose when Ron forced her to eat and sleep when she studied for exams. </p><p>"If Fudge catches wind of this, he will have fodder enough to fuel his propaganda," Harry warned them. He had to try, though he doubted either Voldemort or Dumbledore cared for Fudge's border controls when it came to their movements. </p><p>"See you tomorrow, Harry! You should go home too." </p><p>It was too late to Floo over to Ron's and Hermione's to crash on their sofa. He would have to spend another night vying for the spare cot in the Auror dorms. His poor back was done in for. </p><p>"I can create a port-key for you in the morning," Voldemort said. </p><p>Harry stared at him. Delphini's sleepiness wore off in an instant as she registered those words.</p><p>"I shouldn't-"</p><p>It would be the most awful idea he had had in a lifetime of awful ideas. Even Snape, who had successfully won many wagers with Minerva when it came to Harry's chronic inability to do the sensible thing, would have been shocked that he was contemplating Voldemort's offer.</p><p>He was turning forty. Hermione was confident that 2020 would be the year Harry found the one. Coronavirus loomed over their countries, silent and unseen. Fudge was running for election once again. Dumbledore went on about adopting a baby centaur. Snape was angling for an invite to Minerva's sister's granddaughter's wedding, claiming that it was time to upgrade him in status from boytoy to partner. Hugo refused to move out of his parents' house and called them boomers. Rose wanted to become an apiarist despite Ron's grumbling about how neither of his children wanted to get a paying job. </p><p>And Voldemort had invited him to Swanage.</p><p>"He makes a mean pad thai," Delphini said warmly. "Come over, Harry. British Steel forever! Breaking the law, breaking the law!"    </p><p>"No hair metal in my house," Voldemort warned, though he did not sound particularly annoyed by her Judas Priest fangirling. </p><p>He must be used to it, Harry realized, just as Ron was used to Rose's crush on Justin Bieber and Hugo's raving over how Victoria Beckham was the MILF of the century.  </p><p>Oddly, it was this creepy parallel that decided it for Harry. He took Delphini's hand in his and let Voldemort Apparate them to Swanage. </p><p>------</p><p>There was a roaring fire in the hearth. Spindly glass instruments littered Voldemort's dining table. The all-purpose floo-hacker's kit. Harry wondered who made these contraptions for Dumbledore and Voldemort.  </p><p>"Are we eating in the kitchen again?" Delphini muttered. "Papa, why can't you keep your clutter in the study?" </p><p>"If Narcissa does not listen to your housekeeping advice, I don't see why I should." </p><p>"Aunt Narcissa is an experienced trophy wife," Delphini said cheerfully, as she settled at the kitchen table. </p><p>She pillowed her head on her arms and watched Voldemort assemble pots and pans. </p><p>"I can slice," Harry offered, as Voldemort neatly arrayed shallots, onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, celery, and cilantro. </p><p>That was his duty in Ron's and Hermione's kitchen on Meal Prep Sundays during January every year, when Hermione tried to get them all started on Paleo. It lasted each time until her monthly cycle hit and hormones sent her to Domino's to get pizza with all toppings and extra cheese. </p><p>"I am not an experienced trophy wife, but I know this cookery spell," Voldemort said lightly, as he set the knives to work. </p><p>It was the only spell Harry had learned from Potions that he still used. The first time Snape had come to Harry's Aberdeen's flat and saw Harry using that spell to chop up potatoes, he had claimed that he had taught Harry life skills. </p><p>The meat was pork shoulder from the larder. Voldemort pushed up his sleeve and chopped it the Muggle way. </p><p>"Oh, Papa, use the spell!"</p><p>"It never tastes the same when you use the spell to cut up meat," Harry remarked. Ron refused to accept this, but he did not put up a protest whenever Harry and Hermione insisted on preparing meat the right way. </p><p>"Utter tinfoil!" Delphini declared.  </p><p>The tamarind Voldemort used was fresh. The complex and savory aroma of it turned Harry hungrier. He usually substituted it with lime juice, since he could never find the real thing on his grocery runs unless he went to the fancy Southside organic grocer that Hermione took her business to. Unfortunately for him, he ended up just filching off Ron's Costco runs for frozen meat, fruits, and veggies. </p><p>When had he had real noodles the last time which had not come from a takeout box? Did cup ramen count?</p><p>2020 was going to be the year when he got laid and swore off takeout and fast food. So mote it be! It would happen, he promised himself. It was only March. There were nine months left. Plenty of time.   </p><p>Perhaps it was time to be breaking the law. Get on Grindr, find a hot Muggle boyfriend, take him to the Caribbean, and come back to high scandal in the newspapers about his breach of the Statute of Secrecy. </p><p>Voldemort ladled the noodles into bowls. "Chopsticks?" he asked. "I think we have some," he continued, though he did not sound confident.  </p><p>"I never got the hang of those," Delphini confided. "Papa keeps them around because Scorpius won't eat noodles without chopsticks."  </p><p>"No chopsticks," Harry said. </p><p>The battle had been intense, when Hermione had tried to teach Rose and Hugo to eat noodles the right way. Instead, they had turned out to be hopeless plebeians just like Harry and Ron, and it was a majority spoon-and-fork household. Hermione still clung to her proper ways.  </p><p>Voldemort brought over the cutlery.</p><p>Without waiting for the others, Harry slurped up the first spoonful and groaned. Did retired terrorists take cookery classes on the side? The spices had come together so marvelously, the noodles were done just right, and even the little hole-in-wall  in Edinburgh Hermione swore by did not compare. The noodles warmed him from the inside out. </p><p>"Bloody good, isn't it?" Delphini demanded. "O? E? How are we rating this?" </p><p>"O," Harry said truthfully. "Outstanding." </p><p>"Wait until you have tasted the manna that is his rumbledethumps!"</p><p>It sounded like one of Dumbledore's made-up words. </p><p>"You cannot live in Scotland and not know what rumbledethumps is!" she exclaimed. "It is my favorite Northern dish!"</p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"Mashed potatoes and turnips, with cabbage, done as a casserole," Voldemort said, seeming amused and irked in equal measure. "Hardly the pinnacle of fine cuisine. She likes it because she likes anything with potatoes."  </p><p>"Papa, it is much better than that bouillon-thingie you inflicted on us last year."</p><p>"Bouillabaisse. And to think I went to Greece to get the rascasse." </p><p>Hermione liked that. Harry and Ron could never abide the stuff. Rose and Hugo had faithfully followed in their sensible footsteps. </p><p>"There was an eel head in it!"</p><p>Even Hermione may have found that extreme. </p><p>"A conger, and it was a bloody pain to catch. They bite. You have inherited Bella's and Narcissa's grandiose lack of culinary sophistication despite my attempts to cultivate your palate."</p><p>"I shall eat my potatoes and turnips as a proud peasant," Delphini said cheerfully. "Harry, do you eat eels?" </p><p>"Eels belong in the sea. I am a proud potato peasant," Harry replied. </p><p>Even Dumbledore's fever-dreams could not have conjured this up, he mused, as Delphini laughed and Voldemort hid his amusement behind a sip of water. Seeing Harry watch him, he put down the glass awkwardly. </p><p>"Do they have rumbledethumps in Galashiels, Delphini?" he asked.</p><p>"The team spends our days and nights in the C.R.U.P headquarters," she complained. "Sometimes Nat or Harry bring in food when they arrive. The pantry doesn't even have biscuits! We can't go out because my Auror detail gets upset, and Harry won't break the law with me."  </p><p>"You nearly were killed," Harry reminded her. "If I were you, I would stay put in London and send Rosier to the meetings." </p><p>"There are major benefits in working closely with Susan Bones to put together a joint plan. She has a brilliant eye for logistics. Besides, we cannot contain the situation on one side of the wall without containing it on the other."</p><p>"I went to London today," Voldemort said. "Everybody wore bubblehead charms on the wizarding side, and a few have begun wearing masks on the Muggle side. These measures seem to be effective, at least based on the data from Wuhan and history analyses from my archives on SARS in Asia."</p><p>Fudge had refused to issue the C.R.U.P. recommendation for continuous use of bubblehead charms in common spaces. Dumbledore was working on convincing him. Griselda, on the other hand, had immediately issued the recommendation in the south. What wouldn't Harry do to get a semi-competent Minister? How had Voldemort convinced Griselda to go south with him?<br/>
 <br/>
"Fudge calls it the serenavirus," Delphini said. "Time for bed!"</p><p>She was not as Rose and Hugo, who stayed up into the early hours of the morning watching Netflix or playing Dungeons and Dragons. How could she afford to be? She ran St. Mungo's in the time of a pandemic that had begun its toll. </p><p>After she disappeared, Voldemort turned to Harry and asked, "A nightcap?"</p><p>"No, I need to meet Fudge tomorrow morning," he replied tiredly. </p><p>"Let me show you to the guest room."</p><p>The guest room was sparsely furnished and had not been aired out in a while. It looked over the cliffs. There were three tall rocks under the moon's sliver. </p><p>"Old Harry Rocks," Voldemort said, when he noticed what had caught Harry's attention. </p><p>"You bought your house to look over rocks named after me?" Harry jested.</p><p>Voldemort's silence sent a wave of horrified realization over Harry. He had begun speaking to the man as he spoke to Delphini or to his friends. </p><p>"Old Harry is a euphemism in these parts for the Devil," Voldemort said finally. That particular lilt of his voice meant amusement, Harry knew.     </p><p>"On brand, then," Harry blurted. The surreality of the moment caught up to him then, and it was purgatory.</p><p>Voldemort had the sense not to say a word more, and instead set to wave freshening spells over the linen.</p><p>"There is a draught-patching spell over the windows," he said. "Try not to cast other spells on the glass. It gets finicky."</p><p>"I have not felt you in twenty years."</p><p>Voldemort stilled in his efforts to start a fire in the little fireplace. </p><p>"The horcrux," Harry said softly. The word caught in his throat. "The horcrux in me." He turned away from the window to face the man. </p><p>"What did Albus tell you of their making?"</p><p>A soul, split by murder, saved in objects to preserve life, as a squirrel stores acorns for the winter. </p><p>"Their making requires an unbridled high of emotion, of unconquerable pain, unsurpassed will, and utmost deliberation," Voldemort said carefully.</p><p>Harry remembered how he had saved the Philosopher's stone. He remembered how he had slain a serpent. He remembered how he had brought to Amos Cedric's body. He remembered chasing Bellatrix through the Ministry corridors, and the first Cruciatus he cast successfully. </p><p>There had been unbridled grief and rage and the exultation of vengeance. There had been unsurpassed will, as he fought the inevitable. There had been unconquerable pain, as he bled and wept and mourned. There had been cold deliberation, as he placed one foot before the other despite his doom. </p><p>"What did he tell you of their unmaking?"</p><p>"The container must be destroyed."</p><p>And yet there he stood. He knew, instinctively, that he was not a horcrux anymore. </p><p>"They are unmade as they were made."</p><p>"Delphini!" Harry exclaimed. </p><p>"I had not in me the ability to naturally experience those emotional requirements for making a horcrux. So I turned to another method which forced the emotions upon me."</p><p>He was a man made of a mother's crime and a father's spite in a potion once, and then remade of hatred and bone and flesh in another potion. He had killed, to incite in himself emotion and pain, willfully and with utmost deliberation. Harry sat down heavily on the neatly made bed with its tucked sailor corners. </p><p>"When she was born, I reversed the steps."</p><p>He had willed himself mortal once more. Lily and James had died for Harry. Voldemort had given up his horcruxes. He had conquered his greatest fear, to ensure that he would not outlive his daughter. Two wars. How many had been slaughtered? A wall and a country, torn in the middle. </p><p>"I understand," Harry whispered, overwhelmed. </p><p>"Our connection, one of a kind in history as it is, has some lingering traces of our magic yet," Voldemort continued. "I suspect it will continue until one of us dies." </p><p>"Is that how you sense my thoughts?"</p><p>"No." </p><p>He did not elaborate. Harry did not care for the answer to ask more. </p><p>"Goodnight," he said briskly, affecting a facade of nonchalance. </p><p>Voldemort left him alone. </p><p>He walked to the anti-draught-spelled windows, and looked at Old Harry Rocks. All he knew was that he could not hate Delphini for this. He could hate Voldemort for the needless cruelties and consequences that plagued them still. He had chosen not to, twenty years ago. How could he hate a man who had not been capable of feeling heartrending emotion without an act as extreme as murder? </p><p>Voldemort had not sworn him to a vow of silence. He was not one to be careless. Did Dumbledore know the truth already? </p><p>Voldemort had allowed Delphini to be on the frontline, despite the target she was, despite Bellatrix's warnings. </p><p>An epiphany struck Harry then: Voldemort did not mean to survive her, should anything befall her. His purpose had changed, irrevocably, after her birth. He would not hold her prisoner, even in a golden cage. He meant to let her live on her terms. He meant to follow her in death.    </p><p>Did she know? </p><p>------</p><p>"We will run out of hospital beds if you don't issue the C.R.U.P. recommendations immediately," Susan said. </p><p>"And we will run out of penguins and ice because of global warming, the climate whisperers told me forty years ago! The damned penguins are still there on the ice!"</p><p>"Cornelius," Dumbledore cut in. "You will run out of voters and graveyards in the next five months if you don't issue the recommendations now. The data from C.R.U.P. shows that wizards are significantly less immune to this virus than our Muggle friends."</p><p>Wizards were more likely to be deficient in Vitamin D, Delphini had said, after reviewing the charts at St. Mungo's. There was growing consensus among healers and Unspeakables that this deficiency reduced the immunity to the virus and increased the severity of illness.</p><p>-----</p><p><br/>
Muggle Britain issued a shutdown. </p><p>The streets were empty. </p><p>Rolling Stones published their <i>Living in a Ghost Town</i> single on streaming platforms and it was a hit with the isolated civilians penned in their homes. Four weeks in, the suicide helpline lines registered nearly twenty percent higher traffic, as people lost jobs and mortgages and bills piled up. </p><p>-------</p><p>"We should lead by example," Nathaniel Rosier said at the beginning of April, as deaths rose in the north and in the south. "If the civilians are asked to remain home without visiting friends or family, neither should we."  </p><p>Delphini loved an idealist. Harry no longer remembered what it had been like to feel so fierce and absolute in conviction. </p><p>-------</p><p>He returned to his Aberdeen flat. The Floo network had been deactivated across the country, in a bid to curb the spread. </p><p>He made a cup of ramen and took a bath while his tablet updated itself automatically and refused his attempts to bypass it.</p><p>"Harry," Ron said softly, when Harry finally called him on Zoom. </p><p>"Are you stocked up?"</p><p>"All my years of doomsday prepping are paying off."</p><p>And as they bid each other goodnight after thirty minutes,  Harry caught the searching glance Ron wore.</p><p>"Will you be all right alone there?" Ron asked, concerned. </p><p>For the past ten years, Harry had struggled on and off with depression and anxiety. Crashing over at Ron's and Hermione's, or at Hogwarts, had been the best curative he had found.  He wondered if his pills and potions were out of date. He had not needed them in a long while. </p><p>"When will this end?" Ron said, frustrated and worried. </p><p>Harry did not know. </p><p>"Soon," he promised.</p><p>------</p><p>He missed Delphini. Her fierce convictions about right and wrong, her enthusiasm for her work, and her ability to be assured and calm as they reviewed mortality reports every day had been key to C.R.U.P's early successes as a team.</p><p>However, she had been asked to remain in St. Mungo's, as the situation in London worsened.</p><p>They tried calling each other on Zoom, but their schedules were erratic and Harry had tired of looking at missed calls as he ran on caffeine and dogged determination.</p><p>"Dumbledore put half of the school endowment in Amazon stock. The Board does not understand any of his machinations, and now suspects that he is conjuring gold out of thin air. They have been spying to see if he found the secret of alchemy."</p><p>"Papa is trying to get in on Zoom's initial public offering," Delphini confided. She had Zoomed him from a janitor's closet in St. Mungo's. The connection was terrible but they took what they got. The bubblehead charm she wore dwarfed her blurry head. "He is flush after his oil shenanigans." </p><p>Oil had gone negative. Voldemort had been shorting the futures ever since he had returned from Wuhan. He must have minted a pretty penny out of it.</p><p>"I worry that he will get into trouble with a regulatory commission! Mum says that white collar crime is a step-down from their old days of glory."  </p><p>Hugo and Rose called Harry, Ron, and Hermione boomers. What would they have made of Bellatrix? If Harry heard one more <em>OK, boomer</em> from Hugo or Rose, he meant to remove them from his will. How dare they make him feel old?</p><p>"I am so tired of this, Harry," Delphini said then. There were purple bags about her eyes. "Two of my healers collapsed in the last week, from sheer exhaustion. A few are under isolation with symptoms of the virus. All these procedural lapses-" She cleared her throat and pasted on a smile. "I cannot blame them. What would you do if a patient dying in isolation away from their loved ones begged you for one final instance of human contact?"  </p><p>She had not seen any of her family in weeks, as she lived at the hospital. Harry wondered if Voldemort Zoomed her. He wondered if Voldemort knew loneliness as Harry did, isolated as he must be in his clifftop house.  </p><p>"Mr. Potter!" One of the Aurors came to interrupt him then. He sighed and bid goodbye to Delphini. </p><p>"A suspicious man came by, without a permit, and said that you hired him." </p><p>Harry went to see the disturber of peace penned up in the sterile canteen. </p><p>"Potter, I came to dig you out of your latest mishap." </p><p>Harry was just glad to see a friend in the flesh.  Even with the full body protective charms and barriers they wore, he fancied he could feel the warmth of contact when Snape brushed past him to steal the last can of stale, expired Red Bull from the pantry. </p><p>"You look terrible," Snape muttered.</p><p>"I can dig out the tartan for you." </p><p>"Minerva shan't approve." </p><p>"Locked a chastity belt on you, didn't she?" </p><p>"Your fantasies remain riveting and naive. If I had not known otherwise, I would term you virginal."</p><p>Snape had never gotten around to fucking him. A fortnight's gay phase induced by tartan did not allow for a lot of room for variations, Harry thought wryly. </p><p>There had been the occasional liaison in his twenties, but he had never managed to trust them enough to ask for a fuck. It had been hand jobs or intercrural, and in a few notable cases, a blowjob. </p><p>After his twenties, he had tired of nameless faces and strangers. He stirred the pot, and waited for the one. </p><p>As unfortunate as he had been in everything else, he had been fortunate in friendship. Snape had come for him.</p><p>"I am glad that you are here," Harry said quietly. </p><p>Voldemort had fought two wars. Countless had died and endured and mourned. A wall stood over their torn country. And he had given up everything he had won for his child, who was on the frontline of a pandemic.   </p><p>The death toll increased in multiples day over day. Susan had said that hospitals were struggling with the case load, that they had begun turning back many and asking them to stay isolated in their homes. Soon people would start dying in their house, alone. At St. Mungo's, healers had set aside procedures and been infected, as they gave their dying patients the mercy of final human contact. </p><p>In Galashiels, in a little abandoned chapel, C.R.U.P. worked to curb the spread, trying to save as many as they could, while politicians danced merry and fed civilians propaganda, while disillusioned youth set camp in their parents' basements as the economy crashed and burned, while Dumbledore and Voldemort gamed the stock market. </p><p>There was a shortage of loo rolls. Hermione and Ron, thankfully, had installed bidets in the early 2000s. Buy It for Life, Ron had said all those years ago, the environmentalist he had turned after hearing about the penguins not having any more ice to live on. </p><p>Harry drew in a shaky breath. The familiar and distinctive scent of Snape settled him. Herbs and Hogwarts.</p><p>He was not alone anymore.  </p><p>Snape sighed, cast a powerful disinfecting spell on the unopened can of Redbull, and passed it over to Harry. </p><p>"Thanks." </p><p>"When haven't I seen you through to the other side?"</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Clap for our carers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>May 2020</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Muggle ventilators are unviable. We have only around a hundred in stock. None of the suppliers can provide more given the auction bids from the Muggle government," Susan presented.   </p><p>"What about the Americans?" Kingsley demanded. </p><p>"The American Ministries have not been able to get their standing medical agreements with the American Muggle government honored."</p><p>The current American Muggle government had begun demanding that companies manufacturing protective equipment must prioritize them first. They had the money to incentivize. They had a military to reroute cargo shipments bound elsewhere. </p><p>"Even if we had the ventilators, the patients are flatlining unpredictably when hooked to them," Susan continued. </p><p>There was another issue in the north. The ventilators were reserved for the richest and the most powerful. The others were left to die. </p><p>Fudge had shot down Dumbledore's proposal on euthanasia. Harry was with Fudge on that one.  </p><p>"This matches what we have seen at St. Mungo's," Periwinkle Greengrass said. "The healers suspect the nature of a wizard's respiratory system is different from a Muggle's."</p><p>Nat Rosier cleared his throat and broached, "There is a proposal-" </p><p>"No!" Periwinkle said sharply. "It is unproven and undocumented."</p><p>"We are in undocumented territory," Susan emphasized. "Go ahead, Rosier." </p><p>"We had a patient in Ireland, with significant preexisting conditions. There were no ventilators in the hospital at Dublin."</p><p>"Ireland?" Harry asked, surprised. </p><p>There had been rumors that Griselda's government was a close ally of the Irish. Fudge had said that these rumors showed the danger to the south, and why it was important to be watchful for an invasion from all sides. </p><p>"He is a citizen in exile," Nat explained. "Voldemort was able to craft a spell that mimicked the ventilator. The patient was in significant pain. However, we believe now that he shall make a full recovery."</p><p>Susan was leaning forward, life sparkling once more on her exhausted and despairing face. Even Kingsley, who understood nothing about the jargon of C.R.U.P., and was there purely for security reasons, was lit up bright with hope. Harry could have fainted in relief.</p><p>"Too early to tell!" Periwinkle Greengrass insisted.</p><p>"His lungs are clear," Nat said flatly. </p><p>"There is no evidence that his cerebral functions have been restored. Inflammation has increased." </p><p>"What was the nature of the spell?" Snape asked. </p><p>He had been silent so far. Seated beside Harry, with four empty chairs between them, he had been composed and thoughtful as he had listened to Nat. </p><p>"Er-"</p><p>"Inflammation is a common reaction of the body to powerful spells that come with secondary after-effects as pain or convulsions," Snape explained. "I anticipate it shall return to normal levels in a week." </p><p>The Cruciatus. Harry caught Snape's glance and received a minute nod. Voldemort's spell must be based off the Cruciatus. Little wonder Periwinkle Greengrass was worried.   </p><p>"We should investigate this as our first priority," Susan proposed.</p><p>There was unanimous consent. Even Periwinkle sighed and gave her agreement to pursue this line of enquiry.  </p><p>"We need a C.R.U.P representative to interview You Know Who," Susan continued.</p><p>Nat looked baffled. </p><p>"Voldemort," Harry said. </p><p>Nat nodded vigorously in response. "I can go," he chirped. </p><p>"It shall foster trust in the approach if a C.R.U.P. member from the north is the one to investigate and document this," Periwinkle cut in. </p><p>"Healer Greengrass is right," Snape said softly. "If our Minister gets the public riled up about the originator of the spell, the methodology shall be D.O.A."</p><p>"D.O.A.?" Kingsley asked, confused. </p><p>"Dead on arrival!" Nat explained, looking at Snape with hearts in his eyes. He was so easily impressed. All of Griselda's minions were easily impressed. Had she picked them for their bushy-tailed, unflagging enthusiasm and goodwill extended to all?  </p><p>Dead on arrival. Snape had been playing Gobstones with Hugo and picking up slang. Either that, or he had finally given into Dumbledore's pleas and joined the Weaseldore Discord Server. </p><p>Hogwarts had a Slack channel, that they used to orient Muggleborn parents, but the Board refused to acknowledge it formally. </p><p>The only reason Dumbledore kept his job must be because he had avoided documentation for his entire tenure, turning himself irreplaceable. <em>Job security!</em> he had said, whenever Minerva had attempted to encourage him to change his evil ways. </p><p>The Board, who liked an operational school, had shot down each of Fudge's increasingly frantic appeals over the years. They might find Dumbledore mad as a rabid hatter, but they knew he could run the school and multiply the endowments with what they claimed was alchemy.   </p><p>"Harry?" Susan queried. </p><p>The room was staring at him. While he had been musing on Dumbledore's flagrant unemployability and ability to stay employed despite that, they had come to consensus on the volunteer. </p><p>"I think I can find you a Quick Quotes Quill for your interview assignment," Snape offered. "I happen to also know a handy charm to lengthen and paint your stubby nails." </p><p>"We should have traded Rita Skeeter to the south and got more fish," Harry said tiredly. </p><p>Between Fudge and Rita, they had run the government into the ground and gifted the public seven years of recession. Rita was still calling the virus Griselda's hoax in her columns. Thankfully, the younger generations listened to Luna. However, until all the older generations died off, they were stuck with a majority of the voting population that ate up all of Rita's puerile conspiracy theories.    </p><p>Rita had been waging a lengthy campaign to get back into Hogwarts. Dumbledore had not allowed her on premises after Harry's fourth year. No amount of Fudge's interceding on her behalf had managed to change the Headmaster's mind. </p><p>The Board had agreed with Dumbledore that students should be inoculated from the world outside. After all, if these future minions were educated about the wider world too much, they might get ideas, and ask for better healthcare or free education. The Board had no idea of the leftwing movement Minerva and Flitwick had fostered on Twitch and indoctrinated all their students in. </p><p>The status quo had been doomed on that Halloween night in 2014 when Dumbledore had ridden the Giant Squid and supervised the merpeople to draw in a Google Fiber connection under the Lake. </p><p>Even the house-elves had a Telegram group where they plotted with Hermione to eat the rich.  </p><p>The country would change, for the better, Harry knew, but they had to survive the damned pandemic first and get to the other side. </p><p>Kingsley made a beeline towards Harry and Snape. He stopped six feet away from them.</p><p>Harry was beginning to become paranoid that he could never touch a human again in his life. It had made nigh impossible even his normal pattern of anxiety-addled sleep. Snape had been merciful in slipping him Stay Awake potions that had been infused with non-prescription ingredients. The concoction reeked of Redbull and dragondung. Hermione worried for Harry's liver.  </p><p>"We need a security plan," Kingsley told them.</p><p>Harry had dined at Voldemort's without security. Dumbledore had not been worried. Harry had slept at Voldemort's. Dumbledore had not been worried. Harry had twice taken portkeys made by Voldemort. Dumbledore had not been worried.</p><p>"It is all right," he said. "Dumbledore has taken care of it." </p><p>Kingsley's concern eased when he heard the Headmaster's name, but Harry could see his reluctance to allow Harry to run this potentially dangerous errand alone.   </p><p>"Are you going with him?" he asked Snape. </p><p>"Yes. I will see to his safety."</p><p>That had Kingsley nodding solemnly and taking himself off. </p><p>Harry looked at Snape. </p><p>"I lied," Snape said baldly. "I have better things to be doing. Periwinkle Greengrass wants my autograph. Video his wand movements, please. I can then reconstitute the spell with reduced inflammatory side-effects. He was always given to turbo power mode. Nobody taught him about foolish wand waving, I imagine. Ciao!"</p><p> Turbo power mode? Ciao? Hugo had ruined Snape. </p><p>Snape's phone rung then. </p><p>It was an Android device. He was the only one on Android in their circle. They were stuck on Zoom instead of FaceTime and Whatsapp instead of iMessage because of Snape's poor choices! Snape had done this purely to incite Hermione's rants against all things not made by Apple. It was a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Even Firenze had been brought into the Apple ecosystem, after all! Dumbledore had a few jailbroken Android devices he claimed not to have, but Harry suspected that was because he was plotting coup with Julian Assange's cat at the Ecuadorian embassy. </p><p>It was Dumbledore peering at them. </p><p>"Yes?" Snape demanded. "I am busy, you know. Turn off the cauldron in classroom sixty-four, please. I can smell it smoking from here."</p><p>"There is a rapidly growing outbreak among the house-elves. Three died over the night," Dumbledore said. He looked grave and old, as he had during the heights of the war. "Firenze came down with the symptoms today morning."</p><p>"The healers-"</p><p>"They have no ventilators to even save the affected wizards. Do you think the Minister will allow them to waste scarce resources on the sub-human disenfranchised?"  </p><p>No vote, no ventilator. </p><p>Dumbledore looked brittle and frail, in a way he had never before. Firenze had been his salve of the past two decades. Firenze had been the reason he had lived after the war. <em>I have been a machine of purpose ever since Ariana's death</em>, he had told them one night in 1998. Firenze had listened to him in horrified pity that night. Harry remembered vividly how lost Dumbledore had looked, and he remembered equally vividly Firenze striding to him and kneeling before him as a heart willingly surrendered. Dumbledore's next breath had been one of life renewed.</p><p>Firenze had taken ill. They had no idea how the disease would progress in a centaur. C.R.U.P. had focused its researches only on the wizarding race, as inherently discriminatory as any of their governmental efforts were. </p><p>Harry reached for Snape's wrist, frightened, but the social distancing warning spell screeched and he leapt back scalded. </p><p>"Severus, please," Dumbledore whispered.</p><p>"I am coming back. I have a few ideas," Snape said softly, reassuring. He was always his calmest in a storm, steadying them all through ebb and tide. "Harry, when you get to Dublin, send me a recording." </p><p>------</p><p>It was raining in Dublin. And Hermione had once told Harry that it never rained in Dublin. </p><p>The Dubh Linn Wizarding Hospice stood by the River Poddle, separated by magical barriers from the Castle in the Muggle district. Once the Castle had been defended by Liffay and Poddle, but on the Muggle side the Poddle had changed course.  </p><p><em>Environmental damage!</em> Ron would have exclaimed, if he were there. He would have blamed it all on the aerosols. <br/>
     <br/>
The hospital was a war zone. </p><p>There were exhausted healers running about harried. There were no ventilators. There were many coughing and dying in the corridors. Harry strengthened his bubble-head charm, cursed profusely the Irish government who had been late to issue preventative recommendations to their civilians, and thanked the stars that Dumbledore had managed to get Fudge to issue C.R.U.P. recommendations in March.  If they had been delayed by even a week, their deaths would be double the toll it was. </p><p>He noticed the green and gold robes of Irish Aurors guarding a gift shop, and hurried there. The gift shop, as in St. Mungo's and in Glasgow Magical Maladies Center, had been converted to a V.I.P. patient room. Black curtains were draped closed over the room.   <br/>
 <br/>
As he debated how to explain his errand to the Aurors, Draco Malfoy stepped out of the room, exhausted and red-eyed. </p><p>Dressed in disheveled robes of black, with a sharp receding hairline, he looked as worn down as any of them did these days, as the pandemic killed its way across their countries.</p><p>"Harry!" he exclaimed. Then, realizing his faux pas, he hastily amended it to, "Mr. Potter." </p><p>"It is all right, Draco," Harry said wryly. "Delphini told me that you call me Harry." </p><p>"That tattletale pest!" Draco muttered. Then he frowned, and waved away the Aurors who were coming to investigate. "Are you looking for Voldemort? Periwinkle and Nat had sent word ahead. This is not a good time."</p><p>House-elves at Hogwarts were dying. Dumbledore was frightened for Firenze. <br/>
 <br/>
"It cannot wait."</p><p>Draco scowled. His scowl had not changed. It had graced his thin face whenever he had threatened to get his father involved in schoolboy arguments.</p><p>"He is occupied. Walk with me for half an hour," he said. "He will be done by then."    </p><p>So they walked by the River Poddle, with six feet between them, coated head to toe in bubblehead and rain repellent charms.</p><p>The streets were deserted.</p><p>The shops were boarded up. </p><p>"<em>Clap for your carers!</em>" flashed over the green, in loud colors.  </p><p>Somewhere played the Foo-Fighters single, <em>Times Like These</em>. It had been at the top of the charts for three weeks.  </p><p>"How is Delphini?" </p><p>"I worry for her health," Draco said softly. "Mum has set up camp in St. Mungo's to see that she is eating and sleeping."</p><p>Narcissa was an unapologetic racist, but she was an excellent taskmistress who never had left anything half-done. It oddly reassured Harry to know that she was on Delphini's case. </p><p>"My father is the patient," Draco said abruptly. </p><p>The disconsolate confusion in his voice mirrored Dumbledore's when the headmaster had given news of Firenze's illness. </p><p>"He lives here in Dublin with his wife, Wallis," Draco continued. "She sent word to my mother two days ago, when the healers said he would not make it."</p><p>Harry had often wondered why Delphini had not mentioned Lucius in her chatter about family. He had married another woman and taken himself to Dublin. Why? Had he had a falling out with Narcissa? He had not seemed the sort to break a marriage. Draco had stayed with his mother. </p><p>"Nat Rosier said that Voldemort found a way to cure him," Harry said quietly. </p><p>"Wallis called Voldemort, when she realized that there was no cure in the south. He attempted something foolhardy, but it worked."</p><p>The relief in Draco's voice hit heavier than the rain upon Harry's shield. </p><p>Why had Voldemort been moved to attempt a cure? Had he retained his fondness for Lucius? Harry had never gotten the impression that Lucius had been restored to Voldemort's good books since the destruction of the Diary.  <br/>
 <br/>
-----</p><p>Draco led him back to the repurposed gift shop. </p><p>Harry followed him in. There was a heap of teddy bears in a corner, hastily moved to make room for the patient. Lucius lay thin and unmoving on the sterile hospital bed. His breathing had not the death rattle of the others that lay in the corridors, but the bleeding capillaries on his flesh and the purple-green bruises on his skin testified to a prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus. </p><p>The patient was shielded in a magical glass dome. Outside the barrier sat Voldemort, head in his hands. He startled when he heard footsteps. </p><p>"He came for the cure."</p><p>Voldemort nodded, but did not lift his head to look at them.</p><p>Lucius stirred awake then, and his eyes roved about, taking in Draco and Harry, before coming to rest on Voldemort.</p><p>"It is all right," he rasped. Voldemort shook his head fiercely, refusing to look at him.</p><p>"It is," Lucius whispered, insistent. </p><p>"Abraxas would never forgive me." </p><p>"He would be grateful," Lucius responded. "I am grateful. I will live to see Clematis born." </p><p>"Came around to naming her after a flower?" Draco asked, wearing a mask of cheer to hide his exhausted relief. "I knew I was right when I chose Delphini's name. Our children shall be flower children!"</p><p>Delphini's name shattered Voldemort's stillness. The torn hitch of his breath was loud in the tiny room. Lucius's face creased in sorrow. Draco cursed and hastily tore off his six-foot distancing alarm, before going to Voldemort. Harry could only watch, horrified, as Voldemort wept.  </p><p>"Go home," Lucius addressed them. "Draco, take him home, won't you? Mr. Potter, your hunt for the cure shan't happen today."     </p><p>"I know," Harry said softly. "Draco, take him home. I will stay with your father until you return." </p><p> </p><p>------</p><p> </p><p>Harry sat watch by Lucius's glass dome. </p><p>"No questions, Mr. Potter? I remember you were a curious boy."</p><p>He was too old to be tempted by the dark side of curiosity, or so he had thought. He was not. He could not get out of his head the jarring image of Voldemort's tear-washed face and stricken sobbing. </p><p>"I was born of an impregnation potion offered by my father to his lawful wife," Lucius said softly, voice hoarse from screaming. "A legal heir, to inherit his name and wealth."</p><p>Harry sat at the edge of his hair, consumed by curiosity. </p><p>"My father could not have sired a child. He had been mostly bedridden. He had been nearly killed by polio in his youth. Only Voldemort's terrified invention of a potion that had no backing in research or lore had saved him from death in his teens."</p><p><em>Abraxas would not forgive me</em>, Voldemort had said, anguished. </p><p>"They were friends," Harry breathed. </p><p>The idea of Voldemort cherishing a friend enough to have saved him in mad panic, just as Harry, Ron, and Hermione had saved each other multiple times, was a startling one. Harry did not know how to feel about it. </p><p>"They were friends," Lucius agreed. "After my father convalesced, he returned to school a weak cripple, deformed and club-footed. Then they became lovers." </p><p>A cripple. A cripple, weakened for life. Voldemort had taken that man as a lover.</p><p>"He was the heart of our home, joyful and generous, unreserved in his affection, unrelenting in his good cheer even if he was bedridden often, sustained from breath to breath by Voldemort's experimental magic. He died in 1981. It had been a swift and merciless decline after Voldemort's fall in Godric's Hollow."</p><p>"When he returned, he blamed me bitterly for my father's death. It took years before he accepted that neither money nor influence could have saved my father after his fall. He knew, but he persisted in his denial, for without rage and vengeance there was only mourning's grey grief stretched endless before him. Oh, he had always known, but it took Delphini's birth to end his denial." </p><p>"We waited outside in the corridor, as Narcissa served as midwife to Bellatrix through her labor, and when the first cries of the child resounded, he fell weeping into my arms and asked me to end the war."  </p><p>Hawthorn healed a broken heart, Firenze had said. </p><p>------</p><p>Draco returned late in the night, alone and wan. </p><p>Harry had been sitting by Lucius's bedside, outside the glass dome, and watching the man sleep restfully without an iota of breathing troubles. It gave him hope for Firenze and all the rest. It gave him hope that the pandemic would end. </p><p>"Harry, he is waiting for you at Swanage."</p><p>------</p><p>Harry walked up the chalk trail to the house. </p><p>Under the full moon, the hawthorns on the trellises were in early summer's bloom. Tall stalks of lavender and delphinium gleamed and waved to him from the flowerbeds arrayed neatly about the perimeter. An owl flew low overhead, screeching glory as it plummeted in a neat arc to catch its unwitting rodent prey. </p><p>Voldemort opened the door to Harry's knock. </p><p>------</p><p>Arrayed in checkered flannel worn soft, Voldemort was quiet as he led Harry to the kitchen. There was a pot of tea awaiting them. </p><p>Harry's stomach growled and made its plight known. Subliminal association, Hermione would have called it. His stomach associated Voldemort's kitchen with nourishment. </p><p>"I haven't eaten as well. Here, I Pensieved it into a video," Voldemort said quietly, pouring Harry a cuppa. "I can do us a fry up while you review it."</p><p>The video came to Harry via Airdrop. </p><p>"Can I help you?" he asked Voldemort. The man looked as if he was merely a moment away from crashing in exhaustion. </p><p>"You look worse," Voldemort said distractedly, summoning ingredients and setting a large pan on the stove. </p><p>This was what the pandemic had done to them. From January, the healers and the unspeakables, the government employees and the Aurors, had all been on an endless stretch of toil without hope.   </p><p>Oil crackled on the bangers Voldemort was throwing in. Harry opened the video and forwarded it to Snape. He was too tired to review it. Besides, what purpose would it serve? Snape was the expert on the Cruciatus. Hope was high in him: the Unforgivable had worked on all manner of creatures. </p><p>Eggs, back bacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes followed the bangers into the pan. By the time Voldemort began to fry bread, Harry could no longer get his growling stomach to stop. A throbbing headache had settled in from hunger and sleeplessness. Snape's potions were murder on an empty stomach, leaving Harry nauseated and faint after the rush of adrenaline in potion's wake receded, reminding him unpleasantly of the dog days of summer in Petunia's garden where once a starveling child had potted and weeded. </p><p>"There is chocolate milk in the cold box in the larder," Voldemort said. </p><p>Harry nodded and went to fetch it. The milk was in an old-fashioned glass jar, sealed with muslin and twine. He brought it out and poured for two glasses. Creamy and decadent, it must have been comforting to Delphini when she crashed here after long days at the hospital. </p><p>It was dark chocolate. Cold and rich, it swept down Harry's gullet in soothing comfort and quieted his clamoring belly. No added sugar. Hermione would approve. She complained that she could not get her hands on her Neuhaus chocolates any more unless she went to Muggle Edinburgh, due to Fudge's arsed up economic policies. </p><p>The last time Harry had had a fry-up, he had been hungover and crashed out on Ron's sofa. The sofa had been new, and Hermione and Ron newlyweds. There had been two nights of drinking after their wedding. Molly had made them fry-up the next morning as they lay low in anguish on the sofa as a puddle of sorry bodies. Hermione still ranted to this day that Ron could not get his cock up for a week after their nuptials, plastered as he had been.    </p><p>Harry had never had a fry-up at two in the morning. </p><p>"Delphini keeps odd hours. I have become accustomed to blurring day and night," Voldemort explained. "I had forgotten that that fry-up is not night's fare in civilized households."  </p><p>"No, no, it is all right," Harry said, choking back emotion. </p><p>The rich fats of meat and oil comforted him, inside out. Being offered a meal after starving had always made him emotional. How many times had he wept at Hogwarts after returning from the Dursleys? The reaction had never left him. Snape would call him hormonal. Hermione would say he needed a therapist to work out his childhood issues.  </p><p>"I learned to cook from the house-elves at Hogwarts," Voldemort said abruptly, returning his attention to his plate, neatly mopping up the sauces of tomato and mushroom and beans with a slice of fried bread. "It was a visceral desire, to never know helpless hunger again."</p><p>Had he cooked for his lover? Did he cook for Draco or Bella or Narcissa? </p><p>Harry stilled, horrified. </p><p>This was the third time. There was no Delphini to alleviate their awkwardness, to lend reason to why they were supping together. It had not even occurred to Harry until then. </p><p>Voldemort could have sent the recording directly to Dumbledore. Why had he asked Harry to come by? </p><p>"Delphini mentioned that you live alone," Voldemort said. </p><p>Separated by their charmed bubbles of protection, they were two lonely men weathering a brutal pandemic. </p><p>Voldemort had trembled as a leaf in a gale when Draco had folded his arms about his weeping form. The touch-starved keen of him then had rent Harry's heart. How many times had Harry reached for Snape at the C.R.U.P. office, only to be repelled by the six-foot social distancing alarm spell? </p><p>Harry had stopped going home to his Aberdeen flat. Before the pandemic, his nights had been spent on Ron and Hermione's sofa, or at Hogwarts. After the pandemic had begun, Harry had given up sleep as a lost cause and lived on Snape's potions. When clobbered raw by exhaustion, he would crash in the spare bed at the Auror dormitory, or in a chair somewhere, until he woke shaking, addled by anxiety, separated from humanity by the bubble of charms that cloaked him. </p><p>2020, he had believed, would be the year of the one.</p><p>It was June. The Ministries had hoarded the ventilators for the rich and the powerful. They had asked the rest to clap for their carers. C.R.U.P.'s hopes hinged on Voldemort's modification to the Cruciatus. </p><p>It was June. Harry did not know when he would see Ron and Hermione or Rose and Hugo or Dumbledore and Minerva and Firenze outside a Zoom window. His depression was stayed only by the endless hours of work that he put in at C.R.U.P. He did not know when he would see Delphini again. </p><p>It was June. And Voldemort had gone to Dublin, stricken by panic, to save the son as he had once saved the father.   </p><p>"Delphini won't forgive me if I passed on the virus to you," Harry said softly. </p><p>"If that were to be, I am sure I can find plenty of volunteers to cast the Cruciatus on me," Voldemort said. That tired smile on him Harry had seen only once, when the negotiations for the rupture of their country had been signed in blood. </p><p>"A lodger then, to eat you out of house and home."</p><p>Harry shook his head. It was a terrible idea. Even if he wanted nothing more to be around another human, he had not wanted to be somebody's raft. He was a poor choice for it, anxiety-riddled as he was. He wanted, he desperately wanted, someone to be <em>his</em> raft. </p><p>"I am not doing well," he confessed. </p><p>"You won't go hungry."</p><p>Harry shook his head again furiously. He was shaking, he realized. Voldemort's bubble of protection receded from his right hand. Without the barrier of translucent magic, the flesh seemed obscene. When had Harry last seen an uncovered appendage? </p><p>He swallowed and followed suit. </p><p>The warmth of Voldemort's hand under his lent a tremulous balm. It was Harry's first human contact in months. He tried to blink back his tears, before he chanced to glance across and saw the naked relief on Voldemort's face at the simple touch. Frightened, overwhelmed, Harry grabbed tight that hand and held fast. </p><p>Outside the many-paned windows of Voldemort's kitchen, an owl screeched and crossed the fat, yellow moon over Old Harry's Rocks. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>We might not wrap in ten chapters. I hope a spillover shan't cause you a distorted reading experience.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. A boozy beggar, a schloshed bugger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>July 2020 </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
"Where is Kingsley?" Susan asked, after their daily meeting. </p><p>"In quarantine," Bill Weasley said. He had come in Kingsley's stead to see to C.R.U.P. security. "He was in contact with another Auror who we suspect has the virus based on her symptoms."</p><p>"The testing potion is still pending approval," Susan said, tired and exasperated and utterly despairing that anything would improve, that anyone would survive. </p><p>Snape, given the dire nature of the outbreak at Hogwarts, had put together a rudimentary potion that turned the nails of the imbiber blue if they had contracted the virus. He had bypassed Ministry regulations completely, with Dumbledore's backing, and had tested it extensively on the House Elves and the Centaurs and the Professors of Hogwarts. It had a seventy-percent accuracy rate. </p><p>They had submitted the potion to the Ministry, but Cornelius did not want his voters drinking concoctions that had not been methodically evaluated by the regulators. Susan was desperate to have it issued to the hospitals, so that they could triage early and separate the infected from the rest of the population.  </p><p>Harry's phone rang. It was Dumbledore's ringtone: Elton John's <em>Rocketman</em>. </p><p>He excused himself and went to the riverbank, to where he had four bars on his Vodafone network. </p><p>"Harry, Severus was unable to adapt and execute Tom's spell," Dumbledore said briskly, hiding his terror behind a facade of strength, and failing utterly to mask the tremor in his voice. Harry's heart went out to him. </p><p>"How is Firenze?" He asked softly. </p><p>"His lungs," Dumbledore said, despairing. "We can hear the liquid in his lungs, Harry. Severus and Minerva rigged up an improvised ventilator over the night, but-" he closed his eyes tiredly. "I don't think it is working." </p><p>Before Harry could speak, Dumbledore hurried on, "Severus is casting again. We will know in six hours if it has worked, as per his calculations."</p><p>------</p><p>Percy Weasley came to the C.R.U.P. office at seven in the evening. </p><p>"Minister Fudge is in quarantine," he said without ado. "The American Ambassador is in the Glasgow Medical Center. The Minister met him yesterday." </p><p>He seemed to be shellshocked. He had not expected the virus to reach the Minister. He had not expected the virus to enter the halls of power. It did not disambiguate between the worthy and the unworthy. Harry and Susan had been striving to convince Percy of the virus's relentless and indiscriminate stride for weeks, in vain.  </p><p>"Well, who is his legislative successor?" Periwinkle Greengrass asked. </p><p>"Healer Greengrass?" Susan asked, surprised by the lack of alarm on Periwinkle's features. </p><p>"This is your chance to set up a contact tracing apparatus and to vet the detection potion," Periwinkle pointed out. "You could not sway the Minister. You could attempt to sway the substitute. Issue stricter recommendations."</p><p>Harry suppressed a groan at the apoplectic rage on Percy's face. </p><p>"Secretary Weasley is the substitute until the Minister recovers," Susan explained. </p><p>"Good, you are here," Greengrass went on, uncaring of Percy's anger. "Issue a full lockdown. Only essential businesses must operate. Nobody should socialize outside their immediate household. These measures have proven effective to mitigate the spread in the south."   </p><p>------</p><p><br/>
Harry hesitated as he watched the others Disapparate at three in the morning. He could choose to return to Aberdeen, to his flat. </p><p>He looked at his phone, at the endless list of missed calls from Ron and Hermione, from Rose and Hugo, from Snape and Minerva. Snape had sent him emojis of a thumbs up and a unicorn. Firenze's condition was stable, Minerva had texted. </p><p>He stood alone by the river, under the giant ash across the chapel. The summer's night was balmy and the brackish ripples of the water distorted the waning moon's face. </p><p>His phone pinged once. </p><p>It was Delphini. </p><p><em>"There are Tunnock's wafers in the cupboard where I keep my special mugs,"</em>  she had written. </p><p>Tunnock's of Scotland.</p><p>How had she known that Harry stood frightened and dithering by a river alone?  </p><p>He had been unable to focus on the pandemic all day, keening to once more hold another hand in his, to know the warmth of a touch stripped of charm and shield. </p><p>Had Voldemort told her of their recklessness on the night before, of how they had clasped hands in desperation, unprotected by barriers, witnessed only by a hunting owl against a full moon?</p><p>His phone rung then.</p><p>"No video?" He asked weakly. </p><p>"I am afraid not. I am supervising our interns to undertake postmortems. We are short-staffed." </p><p>Her voice was tinny and distorted. Harry wondered when she had last had a night's sleep. Was Narcissa there with her? </p><p>"Go on to Swanage, Harry. Papa can hack around the border controls."</p><p>"Delphini-"</p><p>"It is all right," she said kindly. "We will make it to the other side, Harry. I promise. We have seen the worst of it."</p><p>Optimistic child. Cornelius was in quarantine. Kingsley was in quarantine. There was an outbreak at Hogwarts. Firenze fought for his life. The virus drew ever nearer to them, day after day. They had not seen the worst of it. </p><p>He tried to keep his breathing level, focusing on a lonely nightjar skimming swift over the waters.   </p><p>"Harry?" </p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"I can hear the river." </p><p>He said nothing, overwhelmed by the quiet wistfulness in her tone. When had she last left St. Mungo's? When had she last walked under the open sky? </p><p>"You saved me by the river."</p><p>He had. She had screamed when Nat Rosier had been felled by a curse. Green had struck mere inches from her feet. Harry had scooped her panicked, frightened form to him and taken a Marrow Dissolving Curse to shield her. He had Apparated them to the clocktower he had seen in a Floo once, remarkable only because Dumbledore had commented upon it. Voldemort had thanked him for saving her. </p><p>"Loneliness doesn't help, Harry," she said softly. "You have been faring poorly."</p><p>Not even Hermione would have spoken so boldly. Not even Snape would have been as prescriptive. A healer's prerogative. </p><p>"You have scarce known me for six months, you pest." </p><p>"I am right," she said, unapologetic. The bright bubble of her goodwill tricked a grin out of him.</p><p>"You are tasking me, unpaid, to keep an eye on him," Harry teased. </p><p>Delphini said solemnly, "Oh, Harry, he does not do well in isolation."</p><p>"Why didn't he go to your Mum's?" </p><p>"He-" she cleared her throat, upset, guilty. "Mum and Dad have poor immune systems. The toll of Azkaban." </p><p>"He stayed put at Swanage in case you could leave St. Mungo's, so that you wouldn't be alone, since he knew you could not join your family."</p><p>Voldemort had been the only one among all of them who had correctly projected that the pandemic would span well over two or three months. He had not wanted to risk Delphini quarantined alone for an indeterminate period of time. He had voluntarily remained at Swanage, so that she had a place to return to. He had placed her mental health above his own. </p><p>"I struggle with loneliness too," she said steadily. "I sought the profession of healing because it allowed me community. It gave me place and purpose. It was not easy for the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange, rumored to be born of infidelity, to make friends or to mingle easily." </p><p>If this ended, if they lived, he would gladly buy for her a lifetime's supply of every Scottish treat and beer there was. </p><p>"Breaking the law," he told her. </p><p>"Breaking the law," she laughed, and ended the call.</p><p>Judas Priest was oddly appropriate. <em>You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue. If you did you'd find yourselves doing the same thing too, </em>they had lamented on that song<em>. </em></p><p>He Apparated to Swanage.</p><p>There, Harry walked through the flower beds of delphinium and lavender, his footsteps muffled by frogsong and chirping cicadas. </p><p>He cast disinfecting spells on himself, thrice over, and knocked. He grabbed the handle and it slid open. </p><p>Voldemort was before the unlit hearth in the sitting room, asleep in an armchair, with a thin woolen blanket draped over his lap, covered head to toe in translucent charms recommended by C.R.U.P. There was half a mug of tea at his side, teetering precarious. Harry cast to move the mug to safety.   </p><p>Then he cast a muffling charm on his feet and padded over to the little guest room. He was hungry, but it would not be the first time in his life that he had gone to bed famished. </p><p>As he opened the door, a draught rushed past him, let in by the finicky spell that was plastered over the windows, and Voldemort stirred. </p><p>"I set out a cold supper on the kitchen table," he murmured, without opening his eyes. </p><p>"Did you eat?" </p><p>Voldemort did not reply to that. <em>Why belabor the obvious?</em> Hermione would have said.  </p><p>Harry went to the kitchen and found a bowl of shrimp covered pasta, aglio olio, with a side of summer vegetables and gazpacho. </p><p>Shrimp, he remembered from Delphini's gossip, was cheaper than cod or haddock in the south. An unintended side-effect of the Fish negotiations after the war.</p><p>When had he last had pasta? </p><p>Rose's birthday, he remembered. They had gone to a Muggle restaurant in Edinburgh. <em>Valvona and Crolla.</em> One of Hermione's favorites. She had ordered beef-cheek and stuffed zucchini flowers. The rest of them had stuck to pizza and pasta. Harry had had pappardelle with ragu.  </p><p>The pasta, a linguine, looked suspiciously delicate and fresh. Had it been made from scratch? Harry would not put it past his host. </p><p>How often had Voldemort waited up for Delphini, with a cold supper and a glass of milk? How often had he fallen asleep in that chair, awaiting her? Why had he waited up this night? He knew that Delphini could not leave St. Mungo's. Had he waited for Harry? </p><p>There was a glass of chocolate milk.  </p><p>----</p><p>He woke with a start to the whistling of a kettle. Day gleamed bright at him through the cliff-facing windows. </p><p>He had forgotten to set an alarm spell. </p><p>Scrambling to his feet, he checked his phone. No angry messages from Susan or Nat Rosier. Right. Saturday. Unless there was actionable agenda, C.R.U.P. did not assemble during the weekends. </p><p>No messages from Hogwarts. Snape or Minerva would have texted if the situation had worsened. </p><p>There was a long group thread from Hermione and Ron. They were arguing about which character would be the default bottom in their erotic fanfiction. Firenze had a certain staidness to him which betrayed wild submissive tendencies, Ron held. Hermione felt that Dumbledore would want to surrender all his controlling tendencies behind closed doors. What was Harry's vote, they demanded? He rolled his eyes and texted back that they might take turns. <em>No! Our readers like tops and bottoms, doms and subs!</em> Ron and Hermione texted back immediately. </p><p>Once, Harry had wondered why Snape had not fucked him. The young idiot he had been then, had assumed that it was Snape's secret submissive tendencies that had come to play. Later, he had learned that Snape was mostly mediocre at gayness, except when tartan and scotch was involved and that his gay spells lasted a maximum of two weeks. Added to that, he was too guilt-prone when it came to Harry. </p><p>He completed his ablutions and made his way to the kitchen, where a pot of tea awaited him. Voldemort entered with a handful of fresh-cut blooms of violets and primroses and hyacinths. He went about to array them neatly in vases here and there. </p><p>Still dwelling on the dynamics of gay relationships, Harry sipped at the strong tea and watched Voldemort gracefully arrange the flowers. </p><p>How had Voldemort carried on with Abraxas Malfoy? Lucius had said that his father had been bedridden, clubfooted, crippled, sustained from breath to breath by Voldemort's desperate magic. Voldemort had seemed a cerebral creature often, hewn of vicious purpose. That had been proven untrue, when Harry had watched him cling to Draco in Dublin, when he had removed the protective barrier of spells over his hand and offered his palm to Harry two nights ago. He sought touch. Perhaps there had been no sexual aspect to his love. </p><p>"Sugar? Cream?"</p><p>Harry shrugged. He was used to drinking his tea plain.  Petunia had not wasted sugar or milk on him. She had not even been of the mind to waste tea, but she had learned early on that he toiled longer if he was caffeinated. With her Thatcherian eye for efficiency, she had then started pouring him a cuppa every morning. </p><p>He watched the deft movements of Voldemort's hands about flower and glass and stalk, snipping and twining and sorting the blooms into a delicate palette of color and shape. </p><p>Snape had nimble hands, when he cut up his potions ingredients, but the strength in his wrists and fingers was callused and covered by stains and scars and burn marks of his adventures. Harry had once found them appallingly dirty, with a child's judgement. Then he had found them marks of a life lived out with unshakeable conviction. </p><p>Dumbledore knew his purpose first in war and then in Firenze. Minerva was not given to existential angst. Ron and Hermione had found their purpose in each other, and in raising their children.   </p><p>Harry had been given a purpose, by a woman in a tower. He had trudged on, mourning and resentful and frightened and determined, until the Wall had sliced their country into two, until the War had ended because of one man's vow to keep his child from orphanages and cupboards. </p><p>The prophecy had unwound then, and Harry had been left to scurry off to his tiny flat in Aberdeen, alone and unremarkable. All he had had to show for the first twenty years of his life was the precious friendships that had come to him. </p><p>He looked at his own hands. They were plain, unmarked, with neither calluses nor scars. They turned stiff on colder mornings, from the early arthritis that had set into his joints. His body had become a reliable weather forecaster. </p><p>A squirrel leapt in through the open windows, and landed in the sink. Harry startled and got to his feet, instinctively rearing into fight or flight once more. Voldemort was utterly unruffled as he set aside his botanical arrangements and went to coax the critter to leave. </p><p>Harry and Ron had watched Disney movies with Rose, when she had been all of eight or nine. There had been one with a girl in the woods singing to beasts and birds. </p><p>Snow White. Voldemort wore plain robes of grey flax.  </p><p>Hermione and Ron were proponents of flax linen for the summers, and of wool for the winters. Buy it for life, they said. <em>We don't want the babies to be born with micro plastics in their blood, do we?</em>  Ron had chided Harry, when he saw Harry wearing a perfectly functional windbreaker. </p><p>Harry could make out the shape of Voldemort's limbs and torso through the summer-thin flax, as the man leaned out the window to deposit the errant squirrel outside. </p><p>"Delphini and Scorpius were frightened if we cast magic on the pests, when they were children," Voldemort explained. </p><p>Harry could imagine Bellatrix's idea of pest repellant charms. </p><p>"The Cruciatus is overkill to teach the squirrels a lesson," he said mildly. </p><p>Voldemort stared at him, perplexed. Shaking his head, he turned to the range, to set out a pan. "I thought we might have dosas for breakfast."</p><p>"Dosas?" </p><p>"South Indian fare. Delphini and Scorpius clamored for it, ever since Draco took them to Chennai on one of his business trips. Draco attempted to take them to many restaurants in London, but they claimed that the dosas did not taste <em>exactly</em> as they had in India. So I decided to try my hand at it before Draco lost his patience." </p><p>What Indian fare was Harry familiar with? He had had parathas and curry, tikka and biriyani. Lassi! </p><p>Dosas turned out to be wafer-thin pancakes. Voldemort served them with green and white chutneys. Coconuts! Harry's Caribbean fantasies consisted of his One and him sipping from the same coconut. </p><p>"Delphini likes <em>Sambar</em> with her dosas, but I had no drumsticks in the pantry." </p><p>"Drumsticks?" </p><p>What did American fast-food have to do with dosas? </p><p>"Moringa pods," Voldemort elaborated. "It is a common ingredient in many Asian potions." </p><p>Harry followed his host's example, picking at the dosas with his hands and dipping them into the chutney. He avoided the green chutney, suspicious of its strong scent, and stuck to the plain coconut. The dosas, despite his initial skepticism when he had seen their insubstantial form, did not leave him starving. The crunchy, crispy sour of the dosas grew on him quickly. </p><p>Wow! This was better than parathas, which were equivalent to pizza base to his unsophisticated palate! </p><p>"It is not easy to cast the Cruciatus on squirrels," Voldemort said abruptly, breaking the peaceful silence of their breakfast. "You need to mean it, in full knowing of what it causes. It is a curse invented by wizards to use on wizards. The most fearsome and loathsome of all beasts is man. I doubt anyone hates mute animals adequately to cast the curse on them."</p><p>Dudley had found great joy in tormenting Harry and puppies and kittens. Dumbledore had once told Harry that Tom Riddle had tortured rabbits and strung them up from the rafters. </p><p>Harry remembered Barty Crouch, then posing as Mad-Eye, casting the curse on spiders. </p><p>"Snape said that it worked this time." </p><p>Firenze was out of the woods, Minerva had told Harry. What had Snape done differently the second time around? </p><p>"Severus shies away from channeling the fullness of power needed to cast these curses. Guilt curbs him," Voldemort said. "He calls it foolish wand-waving, doesn't he?" </p><p>Snape was a creature of guilt. He had changed over the years, for the better, thanks to Minerva's influence. The end of the war had finally allowed him to know home and family and friendships once more, to lay aside mask and masquerade.</p><p>Harry sat across Voldemort, eating dosas at a circular table in a kitchen by the cliffside, looking over at chalky rocks dotting the sea, and endless arcs of sands cradling  Swanage Bay. The air was sweet, smelling of the fresh-cut flowers and the gardens in bloom, streaked strong by chutney's coriander and coconut and English tea. Summer's sun played coy with a lonely raincloud, and the beams cut soft through the flax of Voldemort's robes to reveal dip and crook of limb and elbow.  </p><p>It was then that Harry realized what was different. </p><p>"The charms!" </p><p>Harry had not covered himself in bubblehead charms and distancing alarm spells that morning. </p><p>When he wore the spells, they tinted his vision and messed with his sense of smell. If he had worn them that morning, he would not feel the warmth of the teacup he held, or the flaky crisps of the dosas. If he wore them, he would not see the delicate play of flesh and light under the flax. If he wore them, he would not see the veins on the hyacinths in the vases or the dust motes dancing in the sun rays through the bay windows.   </p><p>A profound sense of loss struck him, but he reached for his wand to incant the spells to existence once more. </p><p>"Wait."</p><p>Harry waited. </p><p>Voldemort cleared his throat, kept his eyes on his teacup, and said quietly, "Outside. Let us go outside. Then you needn't resurrect the charms." </p><p>Susan and the unspeakables were confident that the chances of the spread was significantly reduced outdoors. </p><p>Ron was planning to take them camping in the highlands for Harry's birthday, despite Hermione's warnings that the rules on congregation outside the immediate household would remain in place.  </p><p>"There is a walk to Ballard's Down," Voldemort continued. </p><p>The poorly concealed thread of desperation in his voice Harry had never heard before. How lonely was he, and starved for company and normality, that he was willing to take Harry with him as he walked down the coast? </p><p>How lonely was Harry, and starved for company, that he nodded in acquiescence? </p><p>Among Voldemort's perfectly respectable stoneware crockery hung unrepentant Delphini's Lady Gaga mug. She had said that isolation did not suit Voldemort. Had he clung to Abraxas, sustaining a crippled and dying man from breath to breath, because of his fear of loneliness? Had he lived in vengeful denial afterwards because otherwise only the grey grief of mourning's isolation remained to him?  </p><p><em>Do you want the one? Or do you merely want someone?</em>  Snape had asked Harry once, when they had been drunk together in the Astronomy tower in 2001, after two towers had been blazed to destruction across the Atlantic. Harry had not known the answer then. Twenty years later, Harry still did not know the answer. He had not found the One. He had not found anyone. </p><p>He was an alien in this cottage of domesticity, among its chipped mugs and vases full of summer blooms, beside the cuff marks on the mahogany table and scratches on the oaken floors.</p><p>----</p><p>The walk to Ballard's Down was beautiful, snaking north up the grassy coastline, wild green canopied by bright-blue skies upon the scarp-sloped chalky cliffs. In the distance, Harry espied an obelisk. </p><p>"Is that like Stonehenge?"</p><p>"This obelisk carries no Celtic association. It was a commemoration for the first supply of drinking water to Swanage, built in the late 1800s" Voldemort replied. </p><p>In Las Vegas, they had built a duplicate of the Eiffel Tower. Hermione had said that the Americans were desperate to have history older than a couple of centuries. In Swanage, they had erected an obelisk to commemorate drinking water.</p><p>"I have seen this in a film," Harry said, as they stood on the downland. </p><p>Hermione and he were fond of watching English movies, to see on film the places they could never see again. Had the East Germans and the West Germans felt robbed once, of country and kin, by an arbitrary slab of vertical concrete parting them? </p><p>"Howard's End," Voldemort said. Seeing Harry's surprise, he cleared his throat and muttered, "Narcissa is fond of the film. One of the characters reminds her of Bella, she says." </p><p>Andromeda lived in Inverness with her husband. Did Narcissa think of her at all? Andromeda had never once spoken of her sisters, after the Wall. Good riddance to bad rubbish, she had declared on Christmas, after the Accord had been signed in blood. </p><p>How had the sisters managed to forget each other? Their children were flower children, free of doom and folly.  </p><p>Then a pandemic had come to roost, after twenty years, tearing down the careful constructs of political expediency put into place once on Christmas Eve, dredging up old names once more. </p><p>Picking his way through the valerian and lady's slippers and daisies of the down, Harry followed Voldemort, six feet behind. </p><p>"How did Narcissa discover Muggle movies?" </p><p>Voldemort led them to the obelisk, and sure enough, Harry could see the faded inscription about the supply of drinking water. Dumbledore bet that water would become the next oil. </p><p>"Abraxas was fond of Ivory-Merchant productions," Voldemort said softly. "He served as a financier for some of their early work. <em>The Europeans</em> was the last one we watched together. London's Regent Street Cinema. Narcissa inherited his fondness for the Ivory-Merchant oeuvre. She financed <em>Maurice</em>."</p><p><em>Maurice</em>. </p><p>Harry knew that movie. </p><p>Whenever he stirred his wishing pot, he would run into gay wizards of culture who claimed that <em>My Beautiful Laundrette</em>, <em>Maurice</em>, and <em>Brokeback Mountain</em>, were their favorite movies. In a bid to be perceived as attractive, Harry had sat down with Dumbledore and watched the movies over the summer of 2011.</p><p>Dumbledore had liked <em>Maurice</em> the best. He had told Harry of Gellert Grindelwald, after one too many glasses of cognac, as they discussed that movie. Narcissa had financed the film in the eighties, after Voldemort's fall, after Abraxas's death. Harry did not know what to say. </p><p>The loss on Voldemort's face was a bleak incongruity against the summer bright. He had found the One, and it had not brought him any measure of peace. Harry swallowed. </p><p><em>It is better to have loved and lost</em>, Minerva had said once. </p><p><em>You don't know what you are speaking of,</em> Snape had retorted. Dumbledore had agreed. They had both loved and lost and lived as shadows. Harry had then been grateful to <em>not</em> have met the One.</p><p>"When did Lucius move to Dublin?" he asked, striving to change the subject. </p><p>"After Scorpius was born. Draco needed an heir to inherit. Lucius and Narcissa were married because of complex pacts and clauses dictating their inheritances. He met Wallis on a cruise to the Bahamas, in 1974. They carried on through the course of his marriage, with Narcissa's blessing. Wallis would attend the parties Narcissa hosted often."   </p><p>Had Narcissa looked at Wallis as she had looked at Harry once, as if he were something malodorous and grubby beneath her dainty, powdered nose? Wallis had contacted her when Lucius was grappling with the virus. So they must not be estranged. </p><p>His phone buzzed. He dug it out from the pocket of his jeans. Susan. He scrolled down to review the message. </p><p>Fudge had been hooked up to a ventilator two hours ago. Susan had called a press conference. She wanted Harry there. </p><p>He looked to where Voldemort stood at cliff's edge, six feet away, robes fluttering in the gentle seabreeze, noon's sun turning translucent the drape of linen over skin. The cast of pensive worry on Voldemort's features was a familiar one. How many times had Harry seen it on Ron's face whenever Hugo or Rose attempted anything mildly dangerous? How many times had Harry seen it on Molly's features during the war? </p><p>----</p><p>"Is the Minister dying?"</p><p>"Is he dead?" </p><p>"Who is ruling our country now?"</p><p>"Is the virus attacking only the purebloods?" </p><p>"Is the virus biomagical warfare unleashed by the South?"</p><p>The press conference was a disaster. Despite Harry's and Susan's attempts to portray calm and confidence, the journalists descended on them as carrion. </p><p>"When will the lockdown be lifted?"</p><p>"What about the small businesses?"</p><p>"The Minister for Fisheries flouted the rules and went to vacation in Oban!"</p><p>More and more were breaking the rules and recommendations, with every week of lockdown's extension. Harry could not hold the civilians at fault. Was he not culpable too? </p><p>"We are tightening the restrictions," Susan announced. "The schools will not reopen at least until December."</p><p>Then all was pandemonium.</p><p>"The suicide rates have shot up!"</p><p>"Food poverty is on the rise!"</p><p>"Most Wizards don't have savings to last more than four weeks without a job!" </p><p>"The unemployment rate has increased six-fold since March!" </p><p>"The lockdown is not a plan, Healer Bones! It is merely kicking the can down the road. What is C.R.U.P's plan to eradicate the virus?" Rita Skeeter demanded. </p><p>Muggle governments were investing heavily in vaccines. Various Wizarding governments were investing in research of potions and spells. The recession of seven years and Fudge's unwillingness to redirect emergency funding to research had crippled C.R.U.P.'s pandemic response significantly. </p><p>Griselda had acted on C.R.U.P. recommendations, but with a porous border, their government was unable to prevent the new clusters of spread that emerged  every day in the major cities. </p><p>"We have a contact tracing spell that we are requiring all civilians to undergo. It shall warn them of potential exposure and help the Glasgow Magical Maladies Center to triage and respond swifter, to save lives." </p><p>"Now that the Minister is out of the way, you are asking us to willingly subject ourselves to spells developed by foreign intelligence!" </p><p>The Muggles were worried about 5G spyware spreading coronavirus, Hermione had said.  </p><p>"The spell has been rigorously evaluated and vetted by our Unspeakables," Harry said. </p><p>"You don't deny that it has been developed by the Southern government!" Rita exclaimed, betrayed. </p><p>"If Fudge had prioritized the pandemic response in our government, we could have developed it ourselves!" Susan said, exasperated, sleep-deprived and drained of hope, battered by the virus and the recalcitrant people she was trying to save. </p><p>"Minister Fudge exhorted us to clap for the healers!" </p><p>"And a fat lot of good that has done," Susan muttered under her breath. </p><p>"The Minister said that hot weather will kill the virus!"</p><p>Harry called an end to the press conference. Bill and the Aurors came to shield them from the journalists. </p><p>They went back to Galashiels, and counted deaths once more. </p><p>----</p><p>Dumbledore called Harry on the eve of his birthday. </p><p>"Firenze?"</p><p>"No, no," Dumbledore said, exhausted, as exhausted as every one of them had become. "Filius caught the virus."</p><p>"Snape knows how to treat him," Harry said fiercely, unwilling to acknowledge the hopelessness in Dumbledore's voice. </p><p>"Harry, Filius's immune system is weaker than ours."</p><p>"Can I-"</p><p>"He is in a sterile ward in Madam Pomfrey's care, bruised and bleeding from our attempts to heal him, struggling to draw breath." Dumbledore sighed. "Minerva and Severus suspect he will not last the night." </p><p>"Harry! We need you to look at these charts from Orkney!" Periwinkle Greengrass summoned him back to work then.    </p><p>----</p><p>Snape was the next to call him. </p><p>"Potter, Filius died half an hour ago." </p><p>As per the C.R.U.P. recommendations, funerals were only allowed to be attended by the immediate household. The gathering was limited to four.</p><p>"He wanted to be cremated and have his ashes buried under the Willow," Snape said briskly, calm in the face of tragedy. </p><p>They had run out of room in the morgues. </p><p>Filius had no family outside Hogwarts. There would be nobody that mourned him, except his colleagues. There was no wife or children. There were no siblings. </p><p><em>2020 is the year of the One, for you and I</em>, Filius had joked, on New Year's Eve. </p><p>Harry forced himself to compartmentalize, as Susan and Delphini did, as all of them on the pandemic response effort had to, and returned to review the data from Orkney. </p><p>----</p><p>When he returned to Swanage, it was seven in the morning. He had swiped all notifications on his phone wishing him a happy birthday. </p><p>The house was quiet. Tiredly, he wondered if Voldemort had waited up before retiring. He ventured to the kitchen, and found the man there by the bay window, cradling a bottle of whiskey. The halo of protective bubblehead charms wrapped about him in the morning light. </p><p>"Delphini was exposed to the virus," he said. "She tested negative."</p><p>There was no jubilation in Voldemort's voice despite the good news. Harry knew why. She had tested negative that day. What about the next time? The odds were not in her favor to outlast the pandemic without contracting the virus, given the rising hospitalization rates and deaths. </p><p>There was a rampant outbreak at Hogwarts. House elves were dying. </p><p>Firenze was out of the woods. </p><p>Cornelius was hooked to a ventilator. </p><p>Flitwick was dead. </p><p>The virus had begun taking what they loved. It was no longer an abstract illness that came to strangers. </p><p>"Do you have to be anywhere today?" </p><p>Voldemort shook his head. </p><p>"Let us get drunk," Harry said fervently. He needed to stop thinking about Flitwick. </p><p>----</p><p>They ended up in the parlor, that Harry had never seen. The shelves were crammed with boardgames and CDs and books. There were even a few vinyl records carefully arranged on one of the shelves. On the mantel sat a gramophone, at odds with the wifi speakers tucked in the corners of the walls. The giant flatscreen would have made Ron lament about landfills and consumerism. </p><p>Voldemort settled at the foot of the large sofa with his blanket of wool fleece, and summoned what seemed the contents of an entire liquor cabinet. Beer and wine, whiskey and vodka. </p><p>"I don't remember how to make popcorn," he murmured.  </p><p>"Delphini stashed Tunnock's wafers somewhere," Harry remembered, and summoned them to him. </p><p>He flicked through Netflix, until he found <em>Priscilla, Queen of the Desert</em>. It was his favorite when he needed a pick-me-up.  </p><p>They drank and drank, and ate all of Delphini's wafers. </p><p><em>I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me</em>, Tick sang, gaudied up and pretty, and utterly alone amidst the dancers. </p><p>"I promised myself that I will find someone special this year," Harry said tiredly, drinking straight from the bottle of Pinot Grigio. </p><p>Voldemort made an enquiring sound, loose-limbed and lax in his splay on the carpet, huddled in his blanket, and reeking of vodka. The second bottle, and he was not even chasing his sips with water. </p><p>"Someone special to fuck," Harry explained. "But not really. I wanted domesticity and shit." <em>What's love got to do with it</em>? they sang on the screen. "I wanted to be loved."  </p><p>"Count your blessings," Voldemort said immediately. "It is misery."</p><p>"Was he-" Harry reached for the next bottle of wine. "Was he good to you?"</p><p>He had forgotten the spell for uncorking. And he did not remember where the corkscrew was. </p><p>"Give it here," Voldemort said. He popped off the cork with his teeth. Harry was impressed.</p><p>"I have never talked about him."</p><p>They fell silent, drinking and watching the drag queens on the show live and love. How brave they were atop the rocks of Uluru, parading cocks in frocks. </p><p>"I didn't want to go anywhere, because I had to go alone while others came with their husbands or wives," he said halfway through, as they listened to <em>I will survive</em>. "I couldn't bear their well-meaning sympathy. I kept trying and trying."  </p><p>Harry had lost his strength and hope over two decades, as he searched and searched for the One. <em>I've got all my love to give</em>, the dancers sang. </p><p>Coronavirus reigned over their countries, and Flitwick had died alone. </p><p>The last song was <em>We Belong</em>. Harry wiped his face furiously with the sleeve of his jersey. The wine helped. He needed more of it. </p><p>"What is your favorite?" <br/>
 <br/>
Voldemort hummed and grabbed the remote. He exited Netflix and moved to Youtube, and navigated his way to the Monty Python channel.  </p><p>"Bruce's Philosophers Song," he said. </p><p>"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant<br/>
who was very rarely stable.<br/>
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar<br/>
who could think you under the table."</p><p> </p><p>Harry did not know any of the personages referred to in the song, but he laughed and laughed until he cried, as Voldemort sung along, utterly unselfconscious. </p><p>"And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart,<br/>
<em>"I drink, therefore I am.</em>"<br/>
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,<br/>
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed" </p><p> </p><p>"I have only seen <em>The Life of Brian</em>," Harry said ruefully. </p><p>"You haven't seen <em>The Holy Grail</em>?"  Voldemort demanded, trying to sit up and failing in the pursuit, inebriated as he had become. </p><p>Harry shook his head. The world tilted. He stilled his movements and waited out the nausea. </p><p>Another bottle of wine would be a terrible idea. </p><p>So he reached for another.</p><p>And they watched <em>The Holy Grail</em>. Voldemort knew the dialogues by heart and mouthed along, eyes bright in innocent enjoyment, his cares stripped from him by his immersion in that world of make believe.  </p><p>Had Abraxas funded films because of how Voldemort enjoyed them? Drunk as he was, Harry thought he might fund art and movies and musicals and flower-shows too, if he had a husband he loved dearly. Even a cripple, with death hanging over him, had found the One. </p><p>"I don't want to die like Flitwick, without meeting someone special," he said tearfully, too drunk to care about who saw him broken.</p><p>"You are Harry Potter. That shan't be your fate."</p><p>Voldemort's words were slurred by whiskey, unravelled of sense and lucidity, but Harry clung to them fiercely nevertheless.  </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>We will end in a safe, warm place. Just hang in there.</p><p>I'll see you in a week or so with an update, to give you the time to catch up since I rushed through the first chapters :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Love Potion No. 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p><br/>
<em>September 2020</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Co-living, Harry read on LinkedIn, was the trend of two or three single professionals, strangers until then, working together from rentals larger than tiny, cramped city flats. It was considered an ingenious solution to mitigate the consequences of isolation by still maintaining a social bubble. </p><p>Harry fell into co-living with Voldemort without ado. </p><p>They kept their own hours. </p><p>Harry was at the mercy of the pandemic, as C.R.U.P. needed to assemble swiftly often in response to a new surge, or to put together an emergency plan when a hospital was overwhelmed, or to orchestrate the procurement and sharing of potions and ventilators.  </p><p>Voldemort tended to keep odd hours, since he traded on both American and London stock exchanges, as well as on other platforms for his cryptocurrency.</p><p>Harry had learned to read the signs over the past weeks: it was a bad day when he stumbled home at four in the morning and found Voldemort immersed in online poker. </p><p>On most days, he would find Voldemort, flannel-clad and covered by his blanket of wool, asleep in the armchair by the unlit fire, and a cold supper waiting for Harry on the kitchen table. </p><p>If Delphini called when she got a few minutes reprieve, Voldemort would stumble awake and rush to his room to speak to her. After the fourth time Voldemort had been woken from his sleep, Harry had texted Delphini, telling her to ask Harry first, to see if Voldemort was awake.   </p><p>On the weekends, Harry would wake late, and come to find Voldemort in the kitchen. </p><p>"Dosas?" He asked, seeing Voldemort mix batter. </p><p>"Palacsinta," Voldemort said. "A Hungarian recipe I picked up when traveling a few years ago. It is a crepe. I wondered if we should attempt the sweet or the savory version."</p><p>"The sweet version," Harry said. "It is our weekend brunch."  </p><p>"The savory version, then! I think I have everything," Voldemort murmured, absent-mindedly reviewing the list of ingredients on his phone. "They attempted it on Great British Bake off two weeks ago, but I think this recipe I obtained from the Gundel restaurant in Budapest has more...panache."</p><p>While Voldemort was hesitant to initiate conversation, Harry noticed how he responded eagerly to Harry's clumsy efforts. </p><p>Harry spoke to Susan, to Kingsley, to Nat Rosier, to Percy Weasley, and to many others everyday due to the nature of his work. Voldemort had not seen anyone in person since he had returned from Dublin. He had his video chats with Delphini, with the Lestranges, and with a few others, but it was evident to Harry that it served as a poor simulacrum to the in-person interactions Voldemort keened for. All Harry needed was to open a conversation, and then Voldemort would carry on. </p><p>Hermione had often been desperate for conversation when she had stayed home to raise their children, after weeks of only hearing Rose and Hugo babble.</p><p>Palatschinken turned out to be scrumptious. They were thin crepes, butter-soft, and filled with meat stew. The stew had been made of mincemeat and onions and spices and sweet wine, infused with paprika and parsley. Harry's stomach had made its approval known when the first aroma rose from the pan. </p><p>"Is this beef?" </p><p>"Veal," Voldemort replied. </p><p>Veal. 2020 had been Harry's year to finally end his single-hood. </p><p>He was eating veal palatschinken in Voldemort's kitchen. </p><p>"Well?" </p><p>"You are wasted on day trading." </p><p>"It would have come together better if I had had quark cheese," Voldemort critiqued. "I should have made quark earlier in the week."</p><p>"Do you tire of this?" Harry asked curiously. "Of making meals from scratch?" </p><p>Voldemort poured him tea, and sat back, pensive. </p><p>"Abraxas's health was delicate. It was my magic that sustained him. It enabled me to be attuned to his physiology. I had a better chance of keeping him alive if I had control of his consumption."</p><p>He shook his head, and then continued wryly, "When Delphini was a few months old, Bella struggled with postpartum depression. The lack of purpose after the war had ended did not do her mental health any favors. Rodolphus and Narcissa had to see to her care." </p><p>Voldemort had cared for a bedridden lover once, for decades. The care of a child must not have fazed him. </p><p>"The war had ended. I had half a country, and it was in shambles. There was no government. There was a recession. I was recovering still, from the emotional ravages that came from the destruction of the horcruxes. Caring for Delphini became the purpose I could apply myself to fully. I am not-"</p><p>He cleared his throat, and averted his gaze to the bay windows, to where summer larks were flying about in courting dances. "It became my way."</p><p>Voldemort was not given to speaking openly or warmly, Harry had noticed, in his interactions with Delphini. Food, and preparing it from scratch, had become a metaphor for care. </p><p>What more could be expected from an inbred creature, reviled and unwanted, born of coercion and malice? </p><p>That summer morning, over birdsong and palatschinken, Harry watched the pensive cast on his host's face, and thought once more of James. </p><p>With effort, he shut down that bleak train of thought, and asked, "What was your stock adventure of the week?" </p><p>"GME!" Voldemort exclaimed happily, and launched into why he was buying up Gamestop stock even if all the foot traffic to their stores had been claimed by Steam and gaming platforms. </p><p>"It is the fundamentals, you see!" </p><p>Harry did not see. </p><p>He needed to tell Hermione to sell some of their Apple stock so that he could go on a Caribbean vacation with a hot boyfriend after the pandemic. </p><p>"Go on," he encouraged Voldemort, and settled in to nod and hum as if he understood a word of the spiel. </p><p>-----------</p><p><br/>
"Due to your unflagging commitment to prevent the collapse of our healthcare system, to save lives, to defeat this virus, we have turned the corner! It is nearly over! Christmas will be a delightful and merry return to normality!" Fudge declared. </p><p>His voice was a rasp. His face was creasy and sagging. Life hooked to the ventilator had not done him many favors. </p><p>Percy stood beside him, tall and respectable, nodding solemnly as Fudge nattered on. </p><p>"There will be an easing of the C.R.U.P. recommended restrictions. You are now permitted to form social bubbles of a maximum of four households. These social bubbles may participate in entertainment indoors, as long as they are not mingling with any other household. The bubblehead mandate stands. You will be required to continue disinfecting all surfaces you come into contact with." </p><p>"As per C.R.U.P's procedural recommendations, we have decided not to bring up the Floo Network, given the high risk of community spread through the Floo."</p><p>Harry's phone pinged a dozen or so times. </p><p>Ron, Hermione. Rose, Hugo. Snape, Dumbledore, Minerva. All making plans. He grinned despite himself, relieved as he stood in the late summer six feet away from Susan.  </p><p>--------</p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>Hermione hurried over, and the social distancing spell began clanging. She scowled and remained six feet away. </p><p>They were meeting by the Lake at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had seen to a picnic. They wore black bands of mourning, for Flitwick. </p><p>Dumbledore was burdened by care. Minerva's eyes were wistful as she looked across the Lake to where the carriages bearing schoolchildren would pull up to the Castle on this day in September every year. Snape's gauntness betrayed the sleepless nights spent brewing the testing potions.  Ron had gained a few pounds. Quarantine pounds. That Costco prepping was paying off for him. Hermione was dressed in plain jeans and a jumper, hair in a loose bun, rumpled and unkempt. There was a hunted look to her that Harry had not seen since the war. </p><p>Hermione, as Harry, had been a lonely child. She thrived on her social engagements. She liked her book reading events and coming to the Kitchens of Hogwarts to rile up the House Elves with notions of social equality. </p><p>She fared poorly in isolation, even if she had Ron and the children to keep her company. </p><p>All Harry knew, when he saw his dearest friends six feet away, was a sense of relief. He was not foolish enough to believe Fudge that it was over, but he let himself be deluded for a few moments. </p><p>Perhaps he could hug Hermione at Christmas. </p><p>"Guinness!" Harry exclaimed, when he saw the hamper Dumbledore had brought along. </p><p>"Now you sound like Miss Lestrange," Minerva commented wryly. </p><p>Delphini was still at St. Mungo's, dealing with the surges in London. </p><p>"You are faring better than I had expected you would," Snape opined. The warm care in his eyes was the only reason Harry did not scowl at him. </p><p>"You have gained weight!" Ron said, shocked.  </p><p>"So have you, Ron."</p><p>"Ron has a doomsday granary," Dumbledore said, eyes bright in curiosity as he took in Harry's midsection. </p><p>Harry was glad to see Dumbledore in good cheer. The Headmaster had been struggling to maintain his unruffled facade each day Firenze railed at loss of magic, each day Firenze lamented that he would rather be dead than stripped of the magic that had thrummed in his blood. </p><p>"You are a bonny boy beside Healer Bones and the rest of C.R.U.P."   </p><p>"A bonny boy?" Minerva asked, laughing. </p><p>His jeans cut into his skin about the seams. </p><p>"I have a situation," he admitted. "It was all Delphini's fault."</p><p>Snape's eyes were the first to widen in realization. Dumbledore, dratted all-seer that he was, hummed and poured himself another nip of cognac. </p><p>"Potter, that is the worst idea you have had in a lifetime of appalling decisions!"</p><p>"I didn't think I would hold steady if I stayed at my flat," Harry said quietly. He would have been once ashamed to admit this. The pandemic had changed him.</p><p><em>We are not meant to thrive in isolation</em>, Delphini was fond of saying, whenever Harry beat himself up for his weakness. When he looked at Hermione, and saw the toll it had taken, he was relieved that he had not succumbed to bravery. The pills and the potions would have kept him going for a few weeks. What then?   </p><p>"He is a decent cook," Dumbledore commented. </p><p>"Wait, why do you know this?" Ron demanded, horrified, as he put the pieces together. Hermione looked merely sad. She knew what had driven Harry's decision.</p><p>"Abraxas Malfoy had various dietary restrictions, after contracting polio. The potions that had cured him had taken a toll on his organs. Tom learned from the House Elves how best to cater to his needs." </p><p>There were lasting consequences for many who had contracted the coronavirus. Susan and Harry and the rest of C.R.U.P. analysed plots and charts of conditions from lung damage to arterial clots to brain fuzz. </p><p>Wizards who contracted the virus had been unable to cast a Patronus or similar powerful spells afterwards, even after months. Fudge had become unable to cast his own voice-amplification charms. Lucius Malfoy had found the magical wards in his house refusing to permit him entry. </p><p>Witches who contracted the virus were giving birth to Squibs. </p><p>The virus destroyed magic in the blood; this was the rising consensus among C.R.U.P. Neither Griselda nor Fudge had wanted the public alarmed and spreading more conspiracy theories. So the speculation had been shelved and C.R.U.P. had been sworn by an unbreakable vow to a non-disclosure agreement. Harry knew that Rita Skeeter or some enterprising journalist would sooner or later get their hands on this scoop.</p><p>"I never understood it," Minerva was saying. "He sought perfection in everything. Then he saved Malfoy's life." </p><p>"Was it a quid pro quo arrangement?" Hermione enquired. </p><p>There was no dearth of barters made in sex for favors in the Wizarding world, by the powerful or the wealthy with the career-minded sort without connections. Hermione had fought to organize a platform for the Wizarding #MeToo movement. </p><p>"They were devoted to each other," Snape gossiped, tongue loosened by four bottles of beer. "I don't think it had anything to do with sex or favors. Abraxas Malfoy had been bedridden for most of his life."</p><p>"He was the first to find the humanity in Tom," Dumbledore said quietly, eyes faraway. </p><p>Dumbledore had not found evidence of it, and so had nobody else. With good reason, Harry knew. A child born of a coercive love potion has no natural capacity for emotional resonance. </p><p>Had Voldemort found addictive Abraxas's conviction that there was humanity in him? Harry had clung to Hagrid because of how he had been the first to promise the boy under a cupboard that he was not a freak born to good-for-nothing bums.</p><p>"An excellent example of an asexual romantic partnership," Hermione declared. Ron was nodding along, scribbling notes with a Quick Quotes quill. </p><p>"The woke generation wants to hear about these kind of unusual relationships!" Ron said. </p><p>"The trends are clear, on Tumblr, on Pillowfort, and on Twitter. The younger generations wish art and literature to be representative of diverse romantic and sexual orientations," Hermione explained. "It is unfair that heterosexual sexual marriages have dominated public discourse and mainstream literature for centuries!"</p><p>"What about boy toys to powerful and brilliant women?" Snape demanded. Minerva blushed and scowled at him. "We deserve representation too!" </p><p>"The younger generation does wish to see sexually empowered mature women rotating through a set of boy toys," Hermione said. "In reaction to the common trope of the rich capitalist and his trophy girlfriends."</p><p>"Kardashians," coughed Dumbledore. </p><p>Dumbledore followed the Kardashian serials with religious fervor. Getting him <em>E!</em> had been the worst idea Snape had had. The Headmaster was gambling online that Kanye and Kim would be divorced by the end of 2021. It was at least an improvement over Voldemort's online poker addiction and day trading, Harry supposed. How many times had Harry come to the house in the evenings after work, to find Voldemort hunched over the kitchen table, trying to exploit aftermarket volatility? </p><p>Vices led to destruction, or that had been what Harry had been taught in school. Clearly not. Dumbledore grew richer and richer on his cryptocurrency and gambling. Voldemort was scooping up shorts on the market like there was no tomorrow. Without war, dark lords, and a quest for immortality, the two of them had taken their scheming and plotting to disrupt global markets. Dumbledore did not even pay taxes, because he was exempt as he served without salary in a charitable institution. Harry suspected that Voldemort too must be evading taxation. He would have to ask Delphini one day. </p><p>When he finally got to creating his Grindr profile, Harry would add in all caps: "NO TRADERS!" </p><p>"Can we sell some Apple stock?" He asked Hermione. "After this is over, I want to go to the Caribbean with a hot boyfriend." </p><p>"Find a hot boyfriend first," Hermione said, laughing.</p><p>Oh, nobody had faith in his pulling game anymore. </p><p>"I am going to get laid as soon as the virus is over!" </p><p>"If you manage that, I will drink the contents of the cauldron festering in Classroom sixty-four," Snape wagered. </p><p>Classroom sixty-four had the sentient remnants of Kevin Creevey's polyjuice attempt from February. </p><p>"If you do manage that, Harry, Firenze and I will gladly give a Witch Weekly interview together," Dumbledore chimed in.</p><p>"And I shall introduce my boytoy to my family," Minerva added. </p><p>"And I will stop shopping at Costco!" That was Ron. </p><p>If not for the six-foot distancing and the layers of protective shielding charms they wore, Harry would have thrown an itchy genitals spell at the lot of them. </p><p>Before the Kardashians got divorced, Harry was determined to find a boyfriend. There was no dearth of gay men in Scotland, or so he had been told by Hermione when she had pulled data from the Census Database in 2011.</p><p>"Maybe someone open to adopting kids," he ruminated. </p><p>"That is new," Ron commented. "I thought you wanted somebody <em>free as a bird</em>." </p><p>Voldemort had improved greatly in Harry's opinion after becoming a father. All the fathers he knew, Arthur and Ron and Bill were upstanding men of fine character. Harry had no interest in squalling children. Perhaps someone with a child out of their teens! Rose and Hugo had been awful as teenagers. Only Hermione's nagging had kept Harry attending to his avuncular duties. </p><p>"And someone who can cook," Harry decided. </p><p>"What happened to Netflix and Uber Eats and Chill?" Hermione asked, flummoxed. </p><p>The best part of his illegal lodging arrangement was Voldemort channelling his nervous energy into cooking exemplary meals everyday. The man could put the House Elves to shame. </p><p>"You need to give up <em>some</em> of your demands!" Ron insisted. </p><p>"I am willing to listen to them going on about weird hobbies," Harry allowed. </p><p>Didn't he tolerate Ron and Hermione warbling on about tops and bottoms for their erotic fanfiction?  Didn't he tolerate Dumbledore's attempt to teach him the blockchain? Voldemort went on about his stocks, and Harry still did not understand the Gamestop play, but he nodded along each time. </p><p>All these experiences had mentally prepared him to be the equivalent of a supportive husband who hummed along and said <em>"Yes, dear."</em></p><p>"He wants the full package now," Snape declared. "Potter, if you could not even find someone to fuck, where are you going to search for this ideal husband?" </p><p>"A husband?" Harry spluttered. </p><p>"Severus is right," Minerva remarked. "Children. Dinner. Your requirements are tending towards permanence, aren't they?" </p><p>"I could always shop for one of those eighteen year olds and be a sugar daddy," Harry mused.</p><p>"Please don't," Ron protested. "He has to be at least older than Hugo!"  </p><p>"Yes," Hermione agreed fervently. </p><p>Dumbledore had not said a word. Harry frowned at him. It was unlike the Headmaster to refrain from teasing Harry.</p><p>"The One, then?" Dumbledore said finally, too solemn for one who had imbibed two drams of cognac.   </p><p>An arrangement tending towards permanence. A husband. </p><p>Harry had long given up hope, in his own head, about finding the One. He stood on the cusp of forty. Who found their One at forty? And yet, there he was, in the middle of a pandemic, six feet away from his friends, unable to even hug them, and rambling on wistfully about what he craved for in the Aftertimes. </p><p>"Speaking of permanence," Minerva said abruptly, shifting away Dumbledore's attention from Harry. </p><p>"Minerva!" he exclaimed, transformed by joy. </p><p>She rolled her eyes and walked to Snape, who was arguing with Hermione about Android versus iOS. Harry and Dumbledore stood six feet away from each other, and watched Minerva descend to a knee before Snape, and unearth a jewel box from her robes.</p><p>For once, Snape had nothing at all to say, and remained there, petrified, open-mouthed, eyes glistening in emotion. </p><p>"Say yes, or I am taking it back," Minerva said curtly. </p><p>"Oh, finally!" Ron shouted, laughing, and caught his wife by the waist and danced a merry jig by the lake with her.</p><p>Dumbledore's grin was as bright as moonlight. Harry was laughing too, overjoyed, and they cheered and hooted and yelled raucous encouragement to Minerva as she grabbed Snape's hand and placed the ring home. </p><p>On his face, and on hers, Harry saw Flitwick's loss stamped hard. Snape stooped to kiss her fiercely, breathing her name again and again. Love too had been forced to face its mortality in the ravages of this pandemic.</p><p>"Albus," Minerva demanded. </p><p>"I wed you!" Dumbledore declared, and waved a double rainbow into existence over them. </p><p>Then all was gaiety, drunken and soft, and Harry breathed easy for the first time in months. </p><p>------</p><p>"Do you mean to return to Swanage?" Snape asked, after they had spent another round toasting the wedded. </p><p>"You could stay at Hogwarts," Ron suggested. </p><p>"There is an outbreak here," Minerva said, worried. "Harry cannot quarantine himself. He is required to travel frequently to Galashiels." </p><p>Harry had come to Hogwarts immediately after the Minister's press conference, as Dumbledore and Hermione had arranged a gathering without a minute's delay. He had not thought about what to do afterwards. </p><p>It was two in the morning.</p><p>He could go to Aberdeen, back to his flat. It would not terrible now, since he could see his friends regularly in their social bubble. He could stay at Hogwarts, despite Minerva's concerns.</p><p>He thought then about Delphini still penned in at St. Mungo's. Voldemort would not go to Wiltshire, wishing to be at Swanage to keep Delphini company in the unlikely event she could leave the hospital.</p><p>"To Swanage," Harry confirmed.</p><p>"Let me walk you to the gates," Snape said. </p><p>So Ron and Hermione, and Harry, accompanied Snape down the long gravel path to the gates. </p><p>"I want it to end," Hermione said softly. </p><p>The ring on Snape's hand glinted golden. Minerva had not married him because she wished to marry. She had married him because she feared that one of them might die in the pandemic. </p><p>"I want to hug Harry," Hermione continued bleakly. "I want him to crash on our sofa."</p><p>Harry moved to comfort her, as of old, and the social distancing alarm clanged shrill. He wanted to drop the charms of protection, as Voldemort had, and to take Hermione's hand in his once more. </p><p>"I did not want Rose and Hugo to spend their twenties in our house,  without employment, without friends, without boyfriends or girlfriends, reliant upon us for their needs, hating us and the older generations for the opportunities that they will not have, for the recession that has been their lot for seven years and has only worsened with the pandemic. They will never be able to afford a house. They will never be able to afford children of their own." </p><p>"Fudge says that it is ending soon," Ron said, with forced cheer. </p><p>"The house elf mortality rate has increased," Snape muttered. "I suppose Fudge does not worry about the subhumans."</p><p>"We must get them the vote!" Hermione insisted. "That is the only way to support their interests. No labor without representation!" </p><p>No labor without representation was also Hermione's Twitter tagline. She had more followers than Stephen Fry. Why wouldn't she? She was the best selling authoress of the fantasy romance novella series <em>A Song of Hoof and Poof</em>. </p><p><br/>
-----</p><p>Pink streaks crossed the skies over the cliffs as Harry made his way up the chalky path from the beach to the house. He could see lights through the windows. </p><p>There was music blaring. </p><p><em>Love Potion No.9</em>, by the Clovers.  </p><p>"<em>It smelled like turpentine, it looked like Indian ink</em><br/>
<em>I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink</em>" </p><p>Harry hurried to open the door. The knob did not turn as it had always done before. Voldemort had locked the door.</p><p>Cursing softly, Harry unearthed the key he had never used, that Voldemort had left by his cold supper that first night in July. </p><p>Voldemort was in his armchair, head in his hands. He startled and half-rose when Harry clattered in. </p><p>"All right?" Harry asked, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the coat-stand. </p><p>Voldemort nodded briskly and made to retire to his room. Before he vanished, Harry asked, "You didn't think I would return." </p><p>"Hogwarts must be open to you now."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Voldemort stilled at the threshold of his room, drawn pale and etched soft in quiet loneliness. </p><p><em>Love Potion No.9</em> played on a loop on the Bose smart speakers mounted into the walls. Had Voldemort played that all night long? </p><p>"And you chose to come here."  </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>The pandemic would surge once again in the winter, C.R.U.P. had predicted. The restrictions would return. There was no end in sight.</p><p>What kept Harry sane was this, that Voldemort was equally lonely and miserable, winnowed thin by stress. What sustained Harry was their weekends of exotic breakfast, and the cold suppers he came back to after a day of counting deaths. What held his guttering wisp-thin will was Voldemort falling asleep in his armchair, as if he had waited up. </p><p>Together, he decided. </p><p>This was not what Trelawney had once prophesied. Her words had been undone by the wall that crossed a country's middle.</p><p>"You reek of Guinness." </p><p>"I brought a few for Delphini."</p><p>"Perhaps the cold box." </p><p>Harry nodded and headed to the larder, to place the beers in the cold box. Perhaps one day soon, Delphini could have them with pad thai and watch Taylor Swift's <em>Miss Americana</em>, as she had been hankering to.</p><p>When he passed the kitchen table, he saw supper laid out for him. </p><p>He was too drunk. He was too tired. He was sleep-deprived. <em>Love Potion No.9</em> played on. Harry knew instinctively that it must have been Abraxas's favorite. </p><p>Minerva had married Snape. Flitwick was dead. Hermione was doing poorly. Even Ron, naturally given to good cheer, was struggling. There had been lines carven fixed on Dumbledore's face that had not existed in March. </p><p>Fudge could not cast simple charms. Kingsley had been reassigned to a desk job. </p><p>Taking a deep breath, Harry undid the shielding charms from his hands, and went back to the sitting room. Voldemort was still at the threshold of his room, lost in thought.  </p><p>"You laid out a cold supper." </p><p>Voldemort did not reply, scrutinizing Harry's features with abrupt alertness, sensing a difference. His eyes widened when he noticed the lack of charms on Harry's hands. </p><p>"What do you want?" Voldemort asked. </p><p>The quiver in his voice, disbelieving and wanting, made Harry light-headed. </p><p>An owl screeched outside, merry on its hunt. The moon was full and the tide high crashing on the cliffs. </p><p>And Harry knew what to do.</p><p>"What do <i>you</i> want?" he asked gently. </p><p>The nervous tension in Voldemort's frame unwound. The magic in the room shifted, as Voldemort stripped his hands free of spells. </p><p>Harry waited where he stood. He said not a word as Voldemort placed his hands in Harry's. </p><p>"I cannot-" Voldemort shook his head, overwhelmed by contact. His thin fingers shook over Harry's palms. His composure had abandoned him, leaving behind only a desperate tapestry of the human condition.  His hands closed convulsive, greedy, over Harry's. </p><p>Voldemort stalled for a moment when Harry moved towards the guest room that had become his. </p><p>"What do you want?" Harry asked again. </p><p>Voldemort held his gaze for a long moment, before nodding and following Harry quietly to his room. He stood and watched as Harry pushed back the blankets and settled into bed. </p><p>The flax sheets had been coarse, that first night. Then he had come to find them comforting, and had remembered often the dapple of sunlight's play through the flax robes Voldemort favored. </p><p>Voldemort toed off his house slippers and tentatively crept into the bed. His hands came greedily to Harry's once more. </p><p>And so they slept, holding hands. </p><p>Harry had struggled with anxiety and sleeping difficulties for the better part of the decade. Since the pandemic began, he had not had a night's sleep without waking abruptly in the breathless clutches of a nightmare. </p><p>He woke in the morning, to the tide's crash, to <em>Love Potion No.9</em> still playing on a loop on the Bose speakers, and to the draught through the patched-over windows, to find his hands held tight. </p><p>The warmth of flesh holding flesh, though it was merely their hands, though the rest of them was shielded, was a startling, holy thing. Harry had not known it in his bed for near twenty years. </p><p>There had been two weeks in Snape's bed, and Harry had enjoyed the morning's waking the most, to know the warm presence of another beside him. </p><p>He was jealous of the partnered, whenever he went outside and saw them lovey-dovey, but he had been the most envious in his bed at the Aberdeen flat, or on Ron's sofa, or at Hogwarts, when he had imagined the others holding each other through it all while he lay awake, anxious and alone.  </p><p>He had slept in his jeans, and he had not even noticed the discomfort. He had missed his routine bath before bed, which Hermione claimed would help him sleep better, and that had not affected his rest.  </p><p>There was a pandemic rearing for its second wave. Wizards had lost their magic. Witches were birthing squibs. He was not sure that they would come out of this.</p><p>And yet he was content, and eerily free of care, in this morning's soft. There were creases on Voldemort's face from the sheets, and the disheveled homeliness of him then contented Harry.  </p><p>If he lacked the words to describe this strange mellowness he knew, how was he to describe the naked gratitude he saw on Voldemort's features? </p><p>"Good morning," he said. </p><p>"It is," Voldemort replied. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Ordinary men</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>November 2020</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
Harry glanced at his phone once more, as Periwinkle and Susan debated fiercely about the rollback of pandemic restrictions. </p><p>Messages on their group chat on Telegram. </p><p>Ron and Hermione were vociferously critiquing the cover art of another romance novel that ran in the Witch Weekly. <em>Fifty Tunes of Freak</em> had sold more copies than their Dumbledore-Firenze erotica, and they were furiously tweeting about how it was a rip-off of a Muggle novel, which in turn, they claimed, was a rip-off of a Twilight fan-fiction novella, which in turn-</p><p>"Turtles all the way down!" Hermione had declared. </p><p>Dumbledore was uploading selfies with Fawkes. <em>Quarantine Day two-hundred!</em>, he enthused, and showed off his new footed pyjamas with pink fairies carrying the bitcoin emblem swishing merry about the blue fabric. </p><p>"When the school reopens, my most arduous task shall be to coax this man to wear robes again!" Minerva lamented. </p><p>Snape was sharing pictures of class-room sixty-four. A strange sentience frothed from the cauldron, bubbling an ugly cream and emitting little flames of malice.</p><p>"Wear a hazmat suit!" Ron typed.</p><p>"I am calling the Ministry Workforce Health and Safety department!" Hermione threatened. </p><p>"It is only Severus," Dumbledore typed up. "He has a fascination with monsters. Why, that night in 1974, we caught him in the Shrieking Shack, pants to his ankles-"</p><p>"Severus, you know he has a consignment of iPhones in his desk," Minerva said. </p><p>"I can blow them up, one by one," Snape promised. </p><p>"Then more iPhones shall be bought!" Hermione exclaimed. "Our Apple stock shall go to the moon." </p><p>Snape sent in response the Android emoji. Everyone reacted with a thumbs-down. </p><p>Dumbledore posted a new selfie, with Fawkes perched on his shoulder, holding the box cover of iPhone 11. <em>Designed in California</em>, it said. </p><p>"Foxconn Uyghur slave labor made it!" Snape accused.</p><p>Then Hermione began discussing the grave injustices committed upon the Uyghur people. Genocide, she said.</p><p>"The response of our governments to the plight of the disenfranchised disproportionately afflicted by and dying from the virus. Shall historians a decade later term it genocide?" Dumbledore wondered.</p><p>Firenze and Dumbledore were having a rough time of it, Harry had heard from Snape. </p><p>Firenze, though he had recovered months ago, had not come with terms with loss of his magic.  Hogwarts was a place of magic. Passageways closed themselves off to him, staircases refused to take him where he sought, portraits barred him from entry, House Elves did not heed him, and so on. He could not see Thestrals anymore. He could not sense the properties of herbs. He could not read his stars.</p><p>The virus had reached the forest, C.R.U.P. had found. Centaurs were dying in droves. The Minister had claimed victory over the virus, for the hospitalization rates had fallen among the wizards.  </p><p>Periwinkle was stridently opposing Percy Weasley's proposal to reopen the schools in January.</p><p>"How can we justify herding hundreds of students into dormitories?" she demanded. </p><p>"There is a surge of the pandemic among the House Elves," Susan added. "It would be irresponsible to expose the children to the virus, given that there is little consensus on what the long-term consequences of contracting it might be." </p><p>"Education is paramount!" Percy insisted. "Minister Fudge is disappointed with C.R.U.P.'s efforts to curtail the pandemic! Our children have not been educated for a year!" </p><p>"Minister Marchbanks has also expressed grave concern about the mental health toll it shall take upon young children to be cooped up in their houses with no playmates or the structure of educational routine," Nat Rosier spoke up. </p><p>Hugo had grown a beard. Flaming auburn it was, and he resembled a young Albus Dumbledore, tall and handsome. However, unlike Dumbledore who had been whippet-thin and muscular, Hugo was beer-bellied and gloomy, and only Hermione's nagging led to him coming to their dinner table for meals. Ron had confessed to Harry that he was stressed about how Hugo would fare after the pandemic ended.</p><p>"Small businesses in schooling towns have been destroyed!" Percy continued vehemently. </p><p>Rosmerta's bar and Madame Puddifoot's had been shut down for months. Aberforth's pub did booming business, but his clients held that the pandemic was a hoax devised by the Illuminati Jewish Wizarding Emigre from Poland. </p><p>The Weasley Wizarding Wheezes had filed for bankruptcy. </p><p>Harry scrolled through his messages and missed calls once again. </p><p>No word from Delphini. A spike of concern flared in him. He had learned to trust his gut long ago. He excused himself from the debate on reopening the schools and stepped out from their headquarters. </p><p>It was raining in Galashiels. November's skies were of sleet and steel. Bundled in envelopes of protection charms, protecting him from all manner of organic and inorganic matter, he wished that he could feel the rain on his skin. </p><p>He walked to the giant ash by the river, where he was guaranteed four bars of reception on his phone. </p><p>The first tries went directly to her voicemail. On the river's face, the rain pattered incessant. A lone woman sat fishing under an umbrella on the far bank. </p><p>Harry called Delphini once again.</p><p>"Harry."</p><p>Her voice was desolate, as the rain on Tweed, as the skies of November's grey. Hawthorn was a healer's wand, and it mended a broken heart. Who healed the healer?</p><p>"Tell me," Harry said softly, leaning against the bole of the ash tree. </p><p>"I cannot-" Her voice was riven with grief's confusion. "There is no brilliant surgical spell to save them. There is only the Cruciatus, to provide inflammation to trigger the body's survival magic. They come to us with death in their lungs, in droves, day after day. So many of my healers have been rendered <em>useless</em> by the toll it has taken on their mental health. They come to me speaking of the ones they could not save, of the ones they decided not to save, in ruthless prioritization. It has been months and months, Harry. I cannot-" </p><p>The hitch in her voice was helpless, and in despair she waited at the edge of the abyss. </p><p>"When will it end?" she whispered.</p><p>"Soon," he promised her, pressing his knuckles to his eyes in weariness. </p><p>The second surge, Periwinkle and Susan held, had begun. It was a variant of the virus, one that had crossed to centaurs and house-elves, adapted to non-human physiology. They were racing against time to find Patient Zero of the Wizarding population who had contracted the new variant.  </p><p>"<em>We shall not cancel Christmas</em>," Fudge and Griselda had promised their countries. </p><p>He made up his mind.</p><p>He called Dumbledore. </p><p>"Harry?" </p><p>"Can you tamper with border controls?" </p><p>"Severus, Harry is scheming!" Dumbledore yelled. </p><p>"Tell him to wait for Monday if he requires saving!" Snape called back. </p><p>Harry suppressed a grin. </p><p>-----------</p><p>St. Mungo's was frighteningly modern, with Ipads for check-ins and plexiglass shields that glowed with protective magic separating the administrative and clerical workers from the patients. </p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>Delphini wore a hospital gown, of pale green and white, and it floated shapeless about her thin frame. Her hair was limp in its bun and her lips were chapped. There were dark circles about her eyes. Even her gait was slow, moving as one mortally tired. </p><p>She moved forward, with a soft and stricken gasp when he grinned at her, but the social distancing alarm clanged. Her face fell into bleak despair. </p><p>"Come home," Harry told her. "Periwinkle has agreed to lead the medical response here." </p><p>"I cannot," she said wanly. "There is so much to do." She nodded at the long lines of patients waiting to be tested for the virus. "The second wave has begun in London." </p><p>"There will be a third wave, and a fourth, and so on," Harry said quietly. "This is not a war of olden times, where the final duel decides the fate of the story."  </p><p>"Aunt Narcissa said that Scorpius and I would never know what war meant," she said wanly. </p><p>Hermione and Ron had promised their children the same. </p><p>This was the war of their generation, against a silent and inexorable enemy that walked amidst them. </p><p>Deprived of physical touch and proximity, deprived of companionship, society, and purpose, they had become lonely drifters in bubbles of protection, afraid and angry. </p><p>-----</p><p>Voldemort was puttering about in the gardens, readying the beds for winter's sleep. In the dawnlight's pale, in his flannel, he cut a quaint and homely picture etched onto time's leaves, as he gathered cuttings of dew-drenched alstroemeria for his vases.   </p><p>"Papa!" Delphini exclaimed. </p><p>Harry had to look away from the heart's ache on Voldemort's features as he greedily hearkened to his daughter's voice. </p><p>The flowers fell fallow from his hands, and he ran to her, eyes glistening in emotion. </p><p>Her spells of protection held firm, and she said apologetically, "I came from the hospital. It isn't safe."  </p><p>"I know, I know," Voldemort murmured, gaze roving over her. Then he took a deep breath and offered another manner of touch. </p><p>Harry had not felt Voldemort's magic in its fullness before. He had known it as a sharp-splintered and cold arc that cut and burned. </p><p>Whole, healed by the child that bore a wand of hawthorn, his magic was a many-hued cloak of evergreen splendor that came to rest upon Delphini, and through the dancing curls of it peeked an older magic, the magic of the stones of Hogwarts. Dumbledore's magic contained traces of the Castle. A heir, a headmaster. </p><p>"Papa!" Delphini laughed. "I have told you to warn me before you do that! It tickles!"</p><p>Harry wondered what it must be like to feel Voldemort's magic against his soul. Oh, he had, once, but he suspected this bore no resemblance to that old song of madness and folly. </p><p>"Harry insisted that I stay here for a spell," Delphini prattled on, soothed by magic, soothed by her father's presence. Harry could see the yearning in them to hold each other, but in magic's embrace a father spoke to his dearest child. </p><p>"I promised her soup," Harry mentioned.</p><p>"Did you now?" Voldemort asked, and the soft smile that came helpless to him was an eldritch thing of beauty in the sunrise. </p><p>"Can I have that Flaky soup, Papa?"</p><p>"<em>Flaki</em>," Voldemort corrected her. </p><p>"Yes, that one!" she said brightly, following him into the house. </p><p>Harry summoned the flowers Voldemort had dropped in his surprise.   </p><p>One day, when the pandemic ended, he would keep house with a lover, and there would be flowers on their mantel in every season. He would buy a cottage somewhere on the outskirts of the cities. Perhaps in Oban or Portree. On the coast, he decided, glancing at the chalky cliffs of Swanage and the grassy meadows that sloped scarp to the bay. He was going to stage unrelenting protest on Hermione's sofa if she refused to allow him to sell his Apple stock and buy a little cottage on the Scottish coast. <br/>
 <br/>
-------</p><p>"You brought in the flowers!" Voldemort exclaimed, surprised, when Harry brushed past where he was stood by the kitchen table, cutting up <em>kielbasa</em> for the soup.  </p><p>On the Wifi speakers played Ozzy Osbourne, crooning <em>Ordinary Man</em>. Delphini was singing along from her bathroom, and her voice was merry and tuneless over the sound of the shower. </p><p>
  <em>Many times I've lost control!</em><br/>
<em>They tried to kill my rock 'n' roll! </em>
</p><p>"Is that tripe?" Harry asked, taking notice of what Voldemort was preparing. White and honeycombed, it was unappealing.  </p><p>"Are you averse to it?" </p><p>Harry hated tripe. The first time he had encountered it had been at Hogwarts, and he had found himself nauseated when Ron had explained what it was. Oh, well, he ought to broaden his horizons. Hermione kept telling him it was the mark of a sophisticated single man.</p><p>"I am sure you will cure me of my aversion," he told Voldemort frankly. He had yet to dislike anything Voldemort had made. </p><p>"You haven't had his Svartsoppa!" Delphini shouted over Ozzy's singing. She entered the kitchen, hair folded up in a bright, pink towel, rosy-cheeked from her bath, clad in tatty woolen pajamas of faded brown and a Lady Gaga jumper. </p><p>"Goose blood soup," she explained. "He served it for Draco's birthday five years ago!"</p><p>"Narcissa liked it," Voldemort defended himself, scrubbing salt into the tripe and washing it clean. "It is a Martinmas tradition in Sweden. Hardly as outre as the sorry lot of you thought it was."</p><p>"Aunt Narcissa likes the macabre! She is a Black!" Delphini said dismissively. </p><p>"You have inherited your mother's lack of culinary sophistication."   </p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>"Give her a break. She subsists on shortbread and caffeine pills at St. Mungo's," Harry reminded Voldemort. </p><p>"You have grown fat!" Delphini said, taking a seat and munching on the carrots Voldemort had chopped up for the soup. "Papa, have you been feeding him lard?" </p><p>Harry had grown fat. He blamed it on stress. </p><p>The culprit, he knew, was Voldemort channeling his anxieties into cooking exotic and bloody comforting dishes every day. </p><p>"Potatoes, Papa!"</p><p>"The recipe does not call for potatoes." </p><p>"It can't hurt," Delphini advocated. </p><p>Voldemort's eyes were hauntingly tender when they lingered on her, before he averted his gaze and walked away to fetch potatoes from the larder.   </p><p>"I am glad that you stayed with him," she whispered to Harry then. </p><p>"He is doing better."</p><p>"As are you, Harry."</p><p>He was cheered up by the sight of her bright ebullience restored. She had been weighed down by failure and unending death in St. Mungo's, as even the ones she cured walked away decrepit without magic in their veins. Now, drying her hair with a fluffy pink towel, slouched at her father's kitchen table wearing a cuddly jumper, she was young and alive once more. </p><p>"When we are done with this pandemic, I mean to buy a cottage by the Scottish coast," Harry told her.  </p><p>"I want to see the islands of the Outer Hebrides!"</p><p>"It is cold and dreary. The islands are infested with grumpy mountain goats who hold the riveting opinion that robes are a food source," Voldemort told her, coming back with potatoes for her soup. "The fairies are high on oleander and sing doggerel."</p><p>Harry laughed at the description. Dumbledore would immediately tail thither on vacation, if he had heard this review. </p><p>"Perfection!" Delphini exclaimed.  "Harry, can I be your stowaway?" </p><p>Ozzy sang on, and Harry bantered with her, and in the kitchen hung comforting the aroma of marjoram and chilies, parsley and celery root, ginger and mace and pepper. There was sour bread, fresh baked, to accompany the soup. </p><p>The meat, stewed and rich, flaked in noodles of honeycombed perfection under Harry's fork. <br/>
  <br/>
"Well?" Voldemort asked, daubing a slice of sourdough into the soup. </p><p>"More potatoes couldn't have hurt," Delphini opined mischievously, slurping down her bowlful and holding out for seconds. "Please, sir, may I have more?" </p><p>Harry looked up, startled, and saw the matching sorrow on Voldemort's features. Delphini had never known hunger's shame, of how it left a starveling weeping quietly, unable to sleep, unable to think, reduced merely to a creature that dreamed of food. </p><p>"I endorse tripe," he said lightly. </p><p>"Oh, Harry! I thought you were my fellow potato peasant! You have developed airs! Next, it will be goose blood soup that you endorse." </p><p>"If your father serves it, I make no promises to hold to our proletariat beliefs." </p><p>She laughed and said teasingly, "This is how it begins, the great indoctrination of the unwitting masses by the culinary bourgeois!" </p><p>
  <em>Don't forget me as the colours fade!</em><br/>
<em>When the lights go down, it's just an empty stage!</em>
</p><p>Delphini's sweet, clear voice could not match the resonant echoes of Ozzy's lachrymose rendition. </p><p>"Do you like the song, Papa?" </p><p>"It is an improvement over your Gojira phase."</p><p>"Don't you dare speak a word against Gojira!" She brandished her butter knife in threat. "Harry, did you know that Papa has met Ozzy?" </p><p>"No!" </p><p>"In Winson Green prison, in Birmingham, in the 1960s," Delphini narrated. "Papa was there to liberate Mum and Dad." </p><p>Harry raised his eyebrows. </p><p>"Gross indecency," Delphini explained brightly, sounding proud of her parents. "Dad and Mum had a fondness for putting on a show in the Birmingham football stadium." </p><p>"Alastor Moody lived in Small Heath, where the stadium was," Voldemort added. "It was his beat. They had often had amorous adventures thereabouts to rile him up. I cannot believe Bella told you this story, Delphini!" </p><p>"It was Dad," she replied pertly. "Mum does not want me to know that they have a wild and fantastical sex life."</p><p>The thought of Bellatrix being the prudish one was dissonant to Harry's knowledge of her character. </p><p>"The Muggle bobbies caught them, and threw them into prison after one too many frustrated housewife complained about their hijinks," Delphini continued. "And Papa saved them!" </p><p>"It required the obliviation of many suburban housewives and their perverted husbands," Voldemort said mildly. "They were both underage." </p><p>"Mum burned Nat's hair right off his scalp when he gave me poetry!"</p><p>"You were sixteen, and it had been ghastly poetry," Voldemort remarked. "We cannot blame Bella for a perfectly reasonable response." </p><p>How many times had Hermione defended Ron, who tended to overreact whenever men expressed an interest in Rose? Hermione, as Voldemort, was not one to interfere in her children's affairs, but Ron had been raised by Molly Weasley and believed whole-heartedly in sabotaging any man that came after his precious Rose.</p><p>"And Ozzy?" Harry asked.</p><p>"He was in prison for burglary charges," Voldemort explained. "His father wanted to teach him a lesson, and had not posted bail for him. I remember he had a cherub's face."</p><p><em>I was unprepared for fame, then everybody knew my name, </em><br/>
<em>And the truth is I don't wanna die an ordinary man</em> </p><p>Harry watched Delphini interact with her father, and the joy that sparked bright between them. It should have left him choking on resentment and jealousy. It should have reminded him of how lonely he was, as had often happened when he had watched Ron and Hermione with their children. Instead, all he knew was the fervency of hope, as he looked forward to the cottage by the coast he would make home after the pandemic.  </p><p>Ozzy sang on, and they mopped up their soup with sourdough, in a kitchen lit warm and bright, decked with flowers, a cosy hearth in November's dark that hugged the cliffs and the house.   </p><p>------</p><p>As Delphini made to retire, she asked quietly, "Papa, can I have your magic? I haven't-" Her voice was thin and tired. "I haven't been able to sleep. I see them all. I see them dying under my helpless watch." </p><p>Voldemort's magic was a lullaby, well-worn in its embrace of her. Harry wondered how he used it easily as another limb. This was not the instinctive flare of protection and care that he had seen among families. This was deliberate, as the magic of the scar had been once, as the magic of the diary had been once. He frowned, tossing and turning on his cot that night, wishing to suppress that line of macabre possibility. He would not sleep while his mind dwelled on that dark idea. </p><p>Unnerved and restless, he took himself to Voldemort's door. He knocked once. It opened under his hand. Voldemort was in bed; it was dark but for the moon's light sifted silver through the rainclouds. </p><p>"There is a magical connection, beyond the ordinary," Harry said hesitantly, walking to the bed, peering down at Voldemort's supine form tucked warm beneath a blanket of wool. </p><p>"It is not her nature. It is mine," Voldemort replied carefully. He endeavored to sit up against the headboard, and the clumsiness of his movements he failed to hide despite himself. Harry caught him, reflexes surging quick though he had not saved anyone in two decades. </p><p>"It is the magic, isn't it?" He asked warily. </p><p>"I cannot hope to explain it," Voldemort confessed. The skin on his brow was clammy against Harry's palm. Concerned, Harry sat beside him and measured his pulse. "It will pass. I had merely become unused to it."</p><p>Abraxas, Lucius had said, had been sustained from breath to breath by Voldemort's experimental magic. Delphini was in the pink of health. Worried, Harry made to ask.</p><p>Voldemort's pulse was a wobbly thing under Harry's fingers, weak and arrhythmic. </p><p>"Melancholia runs in the Black bloodline. Bella, Narcissa, Draco, and Delphini have struggled with it to varying degrees." </p><p>Sirius had ailed from mania and depression. Harry had thought it was Azkaban that had wrought it in him. Tonks was on prescription medication, and Harry had once or twice compared notes with her back when he had been taking antidepressant potions brewed by Snape. He had not needed a palliative since he had become Voldemort's lodger. So his ailment must be rooted in loneliness, and was unlikely to be an inherited and inescapable bloodline legacy. </p><p>"Delphini does not have the symptoms," Harry ruminated. Then he realized how she had not messaged in days, lapsing withdrawn into pained silence. His gut had suspected something awry, and he had gone to St. Mungo's to ascertain if she was all right. She had not been. It was only after he had brought her home to Swanage, it was only after Voldemort's magic had settled about her as hearth's fire, that she had smiled bright once more. </p><p>"As a Patronus," he said quietly, thinking about his parents, thinking about James, and how the mighty stag had held off a hundred Dementors by the Lake. </p><p>"I cannot hope to explain it," Voldemort said, rueful. "I learned to be a conduit of magic when I was young, for Abraxas's sake. It became my nature. When I saw Delphini's affliction, even when she had been a babe, I acted."</p><p>His magic had sustained Abraxas. His happiness sustained Delphini, evening out the rough edges of her melancholia. </p><p>"Does she know?"</p><p>Voldemort shook his head. Absently, he turned his palm up, to entangle loosely his fingers in Harry's. <br/>
 <br/>
It was then that Harry realized that neither of them were ensconced in spells to protect and separate. </p><p>He reached for his wand, and then hesitated. He wanted to stay. Voldemort had woken in his bed the once, and they had clasped hands, and it had been the best sleep of Harry's adult life. Neither of them had initiated touch afterwards, though Harry had wished to, near every night, when he came from Galashiels to find Voldemort asleep in his armchair, with a cold supper set out for Harry. </p><p>"I should return. Delphini shall be surprised if she saw me leaving your room."</p><p>"She is quite fond of you."</p><p>All the happiness Voldemort was injecting into her from his magic had turned her into a creature of benevolence and good will to all. She was fond of everyone.</p><p>Harry was fond of her. Precious, happy child. She had in her an effervescent joy that drew him in to care and to protect her. </p><p>Voldemort shifted to make room for him. His windows looked over the flowerbeds perched upon the cliffside, and the song of the sea was a rough and surging sailor's hymn that night. In the moon light, he was shadow and bones, and the bright of his eyes was softened in sleepiness. </p><p>Harry slipped in. Neither of them saw to the protective spells. The searing warmth left where Voldemort had lain before moving to make room was a comforting, alluring trace that mellowed Harry. </p><p>Twenty years ago, Harry had been allowed into another's bed.</p><p>"I slept with Snape," he blurted. </p><p>That earned him a startled gasp of baffled merriment. That earned him Voldemort turning to face him, face crinkled in deep amusement. Harry blushed, wondering why he had put his foot in his mouth once more. </p><p>"Severus and his charming lapses in heterosexuality."</p><p>"Only ever two weeks," Harry said, chagrined. </p><p>"Oh, you weren't the first to experience his foibles." </p><p>Harry raised his eyebrows, shocked by the knowing in Voldemort's voice. Snape had snagged Dumbledore in his bed for two weeks once. He had seduced Harry for a fortnight. Surely he could not have! </p><p>"Did he also-" </p><p>"No, no!" Voldemort exclaimed, laughing helplessly, painted flush in embarrassment. "I have heard of his notoriety in this matter."</p><p>Good! Harry was pleased that Snape had not managed to snag Voldemort for two weeks. It would not do! His tell-all book would be worse than even a Kardashian's! </p><p>"Why did you tell me?" </p><p>Why had he told Voldemort? He hesitated, unwilling to render himself stripped of his facade of worldliness. Then he saw the minute flinch at the creases of Voldemort's mouth, at the pain conduiting happiness through his magic cost him.</p><p>Harry caught Voldemort's hand in his, and said quietly, "You were the first I woke beside in twenty years."  </p><p>Voldemort's astonishment was a living, quiet thing, poorly hid, streaked by a trace of fear. What frightened him? Did he think Harry wanted-</p><p>"It is not about...sex," he fumbled to add. </p><p>There had been encounters after that, before he had given up on them altogether. </p><p>It was not about sex. He had been starved of touch since the pandemic began. And long ago, when he had been a boy in a cupboard, he had wanted another to hold and to be held by, in a simple embrace. </p><p>"I understand." </p><p>Voldemort's gaze was dark, soaked in old mourning that lived in him and clung to every breath he drew. </p><p>"When I returned, I was distraught," he said then, closing his eyes. </p><p>The stark note of grief should have warned Harry, but he saw that Voldemort's hand was clutched tight over his own, and Harry knew better than anyone what it meant to be listened to. </p><p>"I am here," he promised, and Voldemort inhaled sharp as if struck. Loneliness faltered in him, frightened by this bridge another sought to build. </p><p>The anguished clings to his misery for it is comfortable and his, Hermione had said, when she had explained Victor Hugo's novels to Harry once. </p><p>"I sought palliatives. It was in vain." Voldemort's speech was fast, words tripping over each other, as if he were frightened that Harry might leave before he reached the end of his tale. </p><p>"Narcissa found me once in Knockturn,  in an alley where even the regular denizens of that quarter feared to linger. It had been three in the morning, on New Year's Eve in 1995." </p><p>"She found me on my knees, bloodied and incoherent. I had offered myself to werewolves under a full moon. I had never seen her furious until then. She walked into that arena of madness, alone and blazing bright in quiet fury, and fought off the wolves, stunning them one after another. Then she came to stand over me, where I lay in shame and mourning, despoiled in ways she had not seen before or after. She did not speak a word of horrified condemnation. Instead, she said I had best get to Obliviating them unless I wanted the entirety of Knockturn to know what I had been up to." </p><p>Overwhelmed by the tale, Harry scooped him close. Voldemort's breath was an agitated shudder against his neck. </p><p>"You are here," he said, distraught, tense, awaiting to be told that he had deserved this grief he had sown and reaped. </p><p>"I am here," Harry promised, and held him. </p><p>How many times in his twenties, alone and despairing to connect to another in intimacy, had Harry taken himself to pubs in Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and lingered in the alleys behind them, or in the dingy loos, hoping to catch someone's eye, hoping to incite in another the desire he knew to touch and hold, if only for a moment?  And every time afterwards, he would crash on Ron's and Hermione's sofa, and Hermione would scowl at how he was endangering himself with nameless strangers, and Ron would cluck and fuss and make him drink tea.  </p><p>He had woken up one day on that old sofa, and turned thirty, had found a vacuum in himself untended to and yearning. <em>No more</em>, he had decided, and had forsworn the pub scene. Hermione had promised him that he would meet his One at thirty. He had not. She had promised every year since, and he had not met the One yet. </p><p>"This is novel to me," Voldemort murmured softly then. He was a slight thing, warm, seeking the nest of Harry's arms. </p><p>Abraxas had been paralysed in the legs, with an atrophied, weakened body. He would not have been able to hold Voldemort to him so, entwined and entangled. </p><p>Hermione's Mum had Alzheimer's. Hermione's father was frayed and despairing, and would not hear of moving his wife to a care home. Voldemort's mind had been unravelling, and he had been occupied with war, and he had still nursed his lover as best as he could. Caretakers, Hermione said, did not know how to accept care, though they badly longed for it. </p><p>The curling scoops of magic that danced on Harry's skin in blissed lack of awareness reminded him of Hogwarts.  </p><p>"Firenze lost his magic. He wishes to leave Hogwarts." </p><p>"Albus cannot leave the Castle, not even for him. The Headmaster and the Castle, they are the one and the same."</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"The Castle was built of magic, by draining it from wizards, leaving them squibs. It is sustained by magic." Voldemort's voice was warped by the quiet enthusiasm that bubbled up in him when he spoke of the Castle he loved. "The Founders thought long and hard about how to feed it magic, after their times. Salazar wanted to breed Magical Creatures so that the castle may siphon off their magic. Helga wanted to breed powerful botanics to serve as magic's source. Godric wanted to find ways to drink of the earth's magic. Rowena, the wisest of them, said there should be one in the Castle, bound to it. The Founders came to the agreement that there would be a Headmaster, vowed to service. From that day, thereon, every Headmaster at Hogwarts was wedded to the stones. While he lived, the Castle was his to command, and upon his death, his magic joined that of those before him to sustain the Castle." </p><p>As those hermit crabs that stole the shells of dead sea creatures, the castle fed itself on the magic of its Headmasters. Dumbledore could not leave the Castle, not even if he wished to please Firenze and settle in a little home where Firenze would not be punished again and again by unwitting stone and stair, door and portrait, for the magic he had lost because of the virus. </p><p>Dumbledore, ever ebullient and optimistic, had been faring poorly of late. He did not know how to comfort a lover that had lost magic and resented him for it. <em>I wish I had not survived</em>, Firenze had said, again and again, bitter, lost in mourning himself, realizing not that he was carving into Dumbledore's heart each time he spoke so. </p><p>Had Abraxas regretted being kept alive by Riddle's magic? Had he wished to die in his youth, when polio had held him snared in its lethal clutches? </p><p>"You shall have to quarantine yourself here for fourteen days, since we have let lapse our protective spells," Voldemort remarked then. </p><p>They had held hands before. Harry grinned as he caught on. </p><p>"We broke the law." </p><p>Voldemort laughed, and the startled amazement which clung to him lit a fierce desire in Harry to surprise him again and again.</p><p>While he waited for his One, while the pandemic ravaged its way across city and the wilds, Harry could offer a measure of solace to another, and in this offering hold for himself an armful of grace.<br/>
  <br/>
---</p><p>At breakfast, Delphini and Harry nodded along absently when Voldemort went on a tirade about hedge funds that were shorting hardworking businesses, and about how unfair the system was to the retail investor. </p><p>"You aren't a retail investor," Harry cut in. </p><p>"You listened to me!" Voldemort said, astonished, turning from the stove where he was cooking crepes for breakfast. </p><p>"We accustom ourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the practice of a double-faced morality. And since the brain is ill at ease among lies, we cheat ourselves with sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry become the second nature of the civilized man. But a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth or cease to exist," Delphini said, eyes bright as she recited another's words over a cup of instant Nescafe in her Ariana Grande mug.</p><p>Voldemort brought the spatula to his heart, and sketched a bow to his daughter for her lively recitation of <em>The Conquest of Bread</em>. </p><p>Harry winked at Delphini and said, "In virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dog, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master."</p><p>Delphini laughed and put the stove out before Voldemort could lean against it in surprise. The crepes burned. Harry grinned, smug. </p><p>"Oh, Papa! You should see your face!" </p><p>She was right. The awed esteem on Voldemort's features was naked. </p><p>"Dumbledore goes on about it too, doesn't he?" she asked. </p><p>"Constantly," Harry confirmed.  </p><p>"He read it to me when I was three and asked for a bedtime tale," Delphini said wryly. </p><p>"Three-year-olds make the best anarchists, I was told." </p><p>"Mum is always rooting for anarchy."</p><p>"Your mother is three."</p><p>"I am going to tell her you said that!" </p><p>"Please don't," Voldemort entreated her. "My tymphanum is recovering from her last barrage of woe poured unto me via FaceTime."</p><p>Harry imagined Voldemort, with a little girl in his arms, reading to her <em>The Conquest of Bread</em>. </p><p>Dumbledore had attempted to read <em>The Wealth of Nations</em> to young Hugo, before Ron had put an end to that caper. </p><p>"From the cradle to the grave all our actions are guided by this principle. Open any book on sociology or jurisprudence, and you will find there the Government, its organization, its acts, filling so large a place that we come to believe that there is nothing outside the Government and the world of statesmen."</p><p>"Stop mocking me," Voldemort said half-heartedly, pouring Harry another cup of tea, hand coming distracted to neaten Delphini's hair before flinching away when the distancing spell screeched. She scowled, unhappy, but Harry drew her once more into jest at Voldemort's expense.  </p><p>"Oh, I can do better!" Delphini said, frowning as she thought hard. "The means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all."</p><p>So Harry and Delphini quoted to each other the lines they knew from <em>The Conquest of Bread</em>, solemn and straight-faced as they spouted anarchy's principles, in that bright autumn morning, as the sun poured in through the bay windows, and Voldemort was laughing and shaking his head ruefully as he found another pan to return to his crepe-making once more. </p><p>-------</p><p>"Aunt Narcissa wants to meet you," Delphini said, as they walked together on the coastal path to the Water Supply Obelisk, six feet apart, covered in spells.<br/>
 <br/>
"She has met me." </p><p>"She wants to meet you because you are Papa's lodger." </p><p>Harry glanced at her, and saw wariness in her expression. </p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"Are you sleeping with him, Harry?" </p><p>He spluttered, and the worry in her face transformed to mischief when she saw his plain discomfort. </p><p>"Not like that," he insisted, mortified. "You are worse than Rose and Hugo!" </p><p>"I should like to meet them someday."</p><p>Harry wished that could happen. There stood a Wall between their countries, even if the pandemic had unwillingly tethered them together. </p><p>Hermione would take to Delphini, he was sure. Ron would tell Hugo to marry an accomplished woman, sagely, speaking from his own experience. He would tell Rose to spend less on perfumes, shoes, and clothes, pointing at Delphini's utter lack of fashionableness. </p><p>"The Boy Who Lived," Delphini said quietly, looking at where his scar remained hidden by his greying hair.  He had forgotten to dye it, in the ruckus of the past few months. </p><p>The Boy Who Lived, in a cupboard. His parents had been lowlife scum, Petunia had told him. James had faced Voldemort. He had asked Lily to take the baby and flee. Lily had faced Voldemort. A parent's love had overthrown the Dark Lord in Godric's Hollow. And a boy had lived.  </p><p>For the first time, he saw the Black legacy in Delphini. Thin of face, bright-eyed, standing fierce, willing to fight and die for what she loved, he saw in her Sirius and Bellatrix and Draco. </p><p>"Delphini," he said gently. "I am not your enemy." </p><p>"I shan't let you harm him."</p><p>Harry had tried to save Sirius from Bellatrix, in vain. Sirius had laughed as he had fallen, and Harry had thrown his first Cruciatus that night. He had been Voldemort's equal, with a brother wand of holly and phoenix feather. Bellatrix had screamed under the power of his curse. </p><p>Delphini carried hawthorn, the wand of a healer. She had not her mother's brutal strategy. She had not Harry's power. </p><p>"The horcruxes were cut of his soul," she said, watching the waves recede in tide's retreat. </p><p>Voldemort had been afraid of death. </p><p>"He was afraid that he would die in the war." </p><p>The bleak grimness in her voice spoke of a darker secret than one Dumbledore had spoken of. </p><p>"Papa had bonded with Abraxas Malfoy in 1942, in a terrified and desperate bid to keep him alive. It was the bond that once feudal kings and barons imposed on their vassals, to drain their magic and leave them squibs, so that they would not rise in revolt. It was the bond that once cotton plantation owners in the American South had imposed on their slaves, to keep them weak and without magic. Abraxas drew on my father's magic. He could have left Papa a squib at any time he willed it."</p><p>There. Harry had the wretched answer to his curiosity. Abraxas Malfoy had loved Voldemort desperately and fiercely. Even if he had held the reins of a bond of master and slave, he had not harmed.  </p><p>"Papa wished to leave behind his magic, so that Abraxas might live, even if he fell in the war."</p><p><em>What is magic, if not your soul? What is your soul, if not magic?</em> Minerva McGonagall had once told Harry, as they watched the stars together on a summer night in the Astronomy tower. They had been drunk, and she had pointed at the skies at the Black stars, and told him tales of the myths of the star of Sirius. </p><p>What was magic, if not the soul? So Voldemort had broken his soul, to leave behind his magic to sustain his lover. </p><p>"Malfoy did not survive," Harry said softly. </p><p>"Abraxas followed him gladly," Delphini said, sorrowed. "Aunt Narcissa buried him on a rainy evening in November. Uncle Lucius was in Azkaban awaiting trial. Mum and Dad-" </p><p>She sighed. </p><p>"Aunt Narcissa had the House Elves dig up a muddy grave beneath the hawthorn blooms in her garden, and there she buried Abraxas. There was no bier. There were no mourners. There was no coffin. She read Petrach's Canzoniere in benediction to him. "<em>Yet I find there is no path so wild or harsh, that Love will not always come there, speaking with me, and I with him.</em>" </p><p>Abraxas had gladly followed his lover in death.  Voldemort had not died. His magic remained, and with it his soul. He had wandered for thirteen years, meaner than the meanest spirit. </p><p>"Papa had begun unravelling long before Godric's Hollow," Delphini went on. "It was the nature of the bond. Abraxas's breath was drawn of his magic. It was also the nature of the ruptured soul that hearkened desperately to be whole. Only his power and will held him sane, but in the end, as Abraxas's health failed, as his soul clamored to be made whole, as the war surged, his sanity frayed."</p><p>She sat there on the sands, wise and childlike both, alone even if in Harry's company, and raindrops bounced away from her shield.  </p><p>"I wish his love had not come to mean your family's destruction, Harry," she confessed. "I wish his love had not come to mean two wars." She smiled then, looking up at him in soft sincerity, eyes sheened with deep emotion. "I am glad that you lived."</p><p>"I am glad that he has you," Harry said, meeting her earnestness with his own. </p><p>She turned to the sea, and waved her wand to raise towers of water that spiraled and arced into fantastic shapes. Harry grinned and conjured for her eldritch beasts of water's froth, fanged and horned, with wings and tails.</p><p>"He would conjure animals for me from clouds and waves, when I was a child," she said wistfully. </p><p>"Scorpius and I were obsessed with <em>Avatar, the Last Airbender</em>. Draco had introduced us to the show on <em>Nickelodeon</em> after one of his trips to California on business. So Papa would bring us here, to Swanage, and patiently spend afternoons conjuring for us imagined beasts of the Water Kingdom that we described to him, for we fancied ourselves Katara and Sokka."     </p><p>"There is no war in Ba Sing Se," Harry remembered. A city of walls and secrets.</p><p>"Sometimes life is like this tunnel. You cannot always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you keep moving, you will come to a better place," Delphini quoted. </p><p>Fancied herself Iroh, did she?  </p><p>The pandemic was a tunnel that they saw not the end of.</p><p>"Let us keep moving then, you and I, until we come to a better place," Harry offered the dear girl. She grinned bright, and the blazing warmth of her magic matched his own.   </p><p>Hers was not her mother's fierceness, or Harry's power that was equal to a Dark Lord's, but it was hawthorn healed the broken heart. </p><p>------</p><p>Harry slipped into Voldemort's room after midnight, after watching <em>The Princess Bride</em> with Delphini, and laughing with her as they regaled each other with mimicry and quotes, for they both knew the movie by heart. </p><p>"Trades went well?" He asked Voldemort.</p><p>"I sold all my index funds. I purchased Ethereum and hedged with Bitcoin. I need to ladder derivatives tomorrow."</p><p>"I thought you said it was at eighteen thousand dollars a coin." </p><p>"It can only go up, Harry!"</p><p>Harry let him ramble on, amused and dismayed as he launched into a technical explanation of DeFi and smart contracts. </p><p>Dumbledore, Harry was fairly sure, used Bitcoin to purchase quality LSD on the Silk Road. He was yet to come across another application, but what did he know? </p><p>Voldemort went on about distributed, decentralized, public ledgers. </p><p>The Conquest of Bread was easier, Harry mused.  </p><p>Voldemort had moved on from cryptocurrency and was fervently describing the clever move Porsche had made against Volkswagen. Infinite short squeeze! </p><p>Had he gone on so, when he had been in Abraxas's company? Had Abraxas humored him, even if he had not understood a word? He had conjured fantastical beasts from sea and cloud to entertain Delphini. </p><p>Harry dropped his shields of protective charms. Voldemort was not wearing his. Boldly, he reached to cup Voldemort's chin.</p><p>Voldemort's monologue on derivatives petered out into silence. The fear in his eyes was a stark, wary thing. He had unravelled himself of soul and mind and magic once, willingly, on love's altar. </p><p>Harry was the boy who lived, robbed of family by Voldemort's love for a dying cripple.  </p><p>"You did not mean to return," he stated.</p><p>Voldemort shook his head. "Those rites of resurrection Barty and Peter employed. Many covens and dark wizards had attempted them before. They had never succeeded. Peter botched the casting and the potion."</p><p>It was not the rite that had succeeded, but a soul's desperate wish to end its agony of splintering madness.Voldemort had come to form, and found himself bearing a ruptured soul and its magic, in a world where he was a widower.</p><p>He had had nothing to live for. </p><p>He had done his best to die.</p><p>Narcissa and Bellatrix had been clever. They had saved him, by binding him to Delphini. For his daughter's sake, he had lived, and his love for her had given him the will to restore his soul, to end the war, to retreat to Swanage away from power and ambition. </p><p>"For it is hawthorn that heals," Harry remembered Firenze's words from long ago.</p><p>"I had feared loneliness," Voldemort said quietly. </p><p>It was not death he had feared. In his fear of loneliness, he had saved Abraxas Malfoy and sustained a dying man with his own magic, with his own soul. He had returned to find himself alone, until he had found his balm in a child.</p><p>"I fear loneliness," Harry confessed, dragging his hand away from Voldemort's face. "Year after year, as the seasons change, I wait in my flat in Aberdeen and wish desperately to have and to hold."</p><p>The quiet understanding in Voldemort's gaze spoke of a plight shared and known and lived. </p><p>The evergreen of Voldemort's magic woke in the air, delicate in its coils and curls about Harry, a lullaby softer than moonlight, spangled sweet and wise in old mourning's colors. Through the drapes of its silk were studded as stars the bright blue of the Castle's magic. </p><p>Harry wished he could touch the rich, mellow skeins that sung a symphony older than them. </p><p>"May I?" </p><p>Voldemort waited for Harry's assent before bringing Harry's hands to his heart, over the flannel of his sleepclothes. </p><p>Brilliant azure seared Harry's soul, and the Castle was a sentient mother made sacrosanct in stone and wall by the magic of its Headmasters dead and alive. There was Dumbledore's magic in her heart, pulsing alive and mischievous and clever and true. In that soul-wrought sentience of her was the magic of the Founders and their heirs she had loved, dead and alive. There was Voldemort's magic wound through the old scars of her, evergreen, sorrowed and holy as only hymns of love could be, and it led Harry back to Swanage. </p><p>Overwhelmed by the splendid magic of the Castle, Harry nodded to Voldemort, grateful for the gift. </p><p>Dumbledore, despite how he loved Firenze, could not leave Hogwarts, not when his magic pulsed in the Castle's core. </p><p>"Does it hurt?" Harry asked curiously. Dumbledore sustained the Castle, as once Voldemort had sustained Abraxas, as the Headmasters of yore had sustained Hogwarts. </p><p>Voldemort smiled. There was a pensive cast to his mouth. "Birthing life is gloried pain, I am told. Sustaining it was a quiet and everyday sting." </p><p>After the high halcyon days of doomed love's war and bitter madness, Voldemort's present was this, a house upon a cliff, where he made soup for his daughter. After buying his lover alive in Nurmengard's stones, Dumbledore had come to bind himself in service to the Castle.  </p><p>"Is it enough? Are you content?" Harry dared ask. He was fortunate in his friendships, but how long, how long, how long had he yearned to entrust his heart to someone!  </p><p>Dumbledore had crumbled after the war, driven distraught by his loneliness of decades, and Firenze had gone to him. Did Voldemort long too, to be held by a lover? </p><p>Voldemort's eyes were dark as he brought a finger to trace the faded scar on Harry's forehead. </p><p>"It is safer," he said, with absolute conviction. </p><p>His love had been war and madness once. </p><p>Why would he dare it again when he had Delphini to protect? </p><p>Through the closed oaken door, they could hear Delphini puttering about the house, at the crack of dawn, as she readied to leave for St. Mungo's. She was playing Ozzy's Ordinary Man again. </p><p><em>I have travelled many miles, I've seen tears and I've seen smiles</em>, she sang with Ozzy, tuneless and merry. </p><p>The blazing love that broke to the fore in Voldemort's magic was hawthorn's white, and the headiness of it sent Harry reeling. </p><p>"Happiness becomes you," Harry said honestly. </p><p>Voldemort's surprise bloomed as holly's sharp red in his magic. Harry grinned at the meaning implicit. </p><p>"You have always surprised me," Voldemort confessed.   </p><p>With a curse that rebounded, with twined wands that had forced Voldemort to defeat in a graveyard, with a soul that could not be possessed in the Ministry, with how he had shielded Delphini in Galashiels and brought her safely home, Harry had always surprised Voldemort. </p><p>So Harry surprised him once more, and he surprised himself too, as he crossed the distance between them and brushed a kiss along the parted lines of Voldemort's mouth. Hollies twined through the verdure of Voldemort's magic, playful and curious and strangely symphonic as they threaded through the velvet silken skeins of heavy mourning's cloak. Distracted, Voldemort frowned and shielded his magic once more, until it was only them in that room, rendered ordinary men, as dawn washed across the sheets. </p><p>The house was quiet, in the wake of Delphini's departure to St. Mungo's. </p><p>"Is this all right?" Harry asked. He wanted to run a thumb along the dip of Voldemort's jaw, to his neck, to his collar's hollow.</p><p>"A distraction?" Voldemort queried in turn. "Until the pandemic's end?" </p><p>Until the pandemic's end. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for sexual content. Please watch your step.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>December 2020</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"We should not have eased the restrictions last month," Susan said tiredly, as Harry brought up the tallies of case counts across each township in the North. In glaring yellow circles the case counts wreathed each location, with a nucleus of expanding black of mortalities encircled thinly by hospitalizations in red. </p><p>"Deaths are a lagging indicator," Periwinkle droned on, though she was preaching to the choir in their little C.R.U.P. headquarters in the old chapel of Galashiels.</p><p>"Fudge will not cancel Christmas," Harry informed them. </p><p>"Neither will Madam Marchbanks," Nat Rosier chimed in. "Now that the populace has become accustomed to the reduction in restrictions, it shall prove to be political suicide to reinstate them." </p><p>They had had to ease back restrictions in November, giving into Fudge's concerns about economic troubles unseating him in the upcoming election. Griselda Marchbanks had followed suit, for it would have been unpopular with her electorate should the south hold stricter restrictions than the north. </p><p>Harry did not worry about the south as he worried about the north. Griselda was not unreasonable. She had the benefit of a relatively stronger economy.  </p><p>"Well, we need to vote them out," Periwinkle said, pragmatic and unruffled to the end. "We need to buy time for the vaccine potion research and trials to be completed."</p><p>Harry admired her unpretentiousness. One so young, and she reminded him of Minerva. Even Susan found Periwinkle a tad dry in her fierce focus on practicality. </p><p>"We are not a political entity, Healer Greengrass," Susan reminded her. </p><p>"Politics caters to the affairs of groups of individuals, to see to their welfare through the distribution of resources and information," Periwinkle said bluntly. "We are not apolitical, because we are creating policy recommendations that affect multitudes. We can and should refrain from being partisan or culpable of bias."  </p><p>Percy would have liked her pedantry. It was a pity that he loathed her on principle, for all the times she had called Fudge ignorant and incompetent. </p><p>As if summoned by Harry's musings, the door opened, and Percy entered their conference room, red-faced and furious behind the bubble head charm he wore. </p><p>Brandishing a Daily Prophet, he strode to where Periwinkle and Nat were seated, and waved it before their faces. </p><p>Concerned, Harry went over to read the blaring headlines. </p><p>"YOU KNOW WHO'S BIOMAGICAL WARFARE!"<br/>
"THE SECRET TRIP TO WUHAN!"<br/>
"ALL OR NOTHING: YOU KNOW WHO'S GAMBIT!"<br/>
"HEALER DELPHINI, CHIEF VIRUS SMUGGLER!"<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Swearing, Harry grabbed the paper from Percy's fist. </p><p>Rita had not held back.</p><p>Voldemort had brought the virus from Wuhan as a weapon to attack the north. The first hundred visitors across the Wall had smuggled it into Scotland. Delphini had personally infected Fudge. </p><p>At least, he thought glumly, Rita had not made the connection between Voldemort and Delphini. The girl's lack of physical resemblance to him was a boon. </p><p>"This is a distraction from misgovernance," Periwinkle said, betraying her utter lack of interest in Rita's shenanigans. "Secretary Weasley, may I advise you to allow C.R.U.P. to return to our day's business?" </p><p>"The Ministry of Magic of the Northern Territories is withdrawing from the Cross-border Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics, effective immediately. We shall institute a national pandemic response," Percy declared. "The Minister has announced that there will be no cooperation with biomagical terrorists. The border has been closed as of noon. The southern delegation shall be immediately conveyed by our Aurors to border controls."</p><p>He took a last look about their little headquarters, their stacks of parchment and winter clothes, and said in parting, "I wish you all a very merry Christmas."</p><p>----</p><p>Harry sat on his pristine white sofa in the Aberdeen flat, and tried to summon the energy to haul himself to the kitchenette. </p><p>Did he have anything in the freezer? He would need to order in. Sighing, he opened the UberEats app on his phone. It demanded to be updated.</p><p>Right, he had not used it in months, since Voldemort had funneled his pandemic anxiety into the culinary arts. </p><p>He ordered pizza and went to take a shower. </p><p>Austerity measures cut off the hot water in eleven minutes, he remembered, hopping out of the shower and casting a swift warming spell on his bits before they fell off frozen. In his cottage by the sea, there would be no dearth of hot water, he promised himself. He was done with city living. Swanage had ruined him. </p><p>The doorbell rang. Tugging on a pair of sweats and a Weasley jumper, he cast his charms of protection and social distancing, and went to the door. </p><p>Snape awaited him, pizza in hand. </p><p>"Your neighbor pinched my arse when we passed each other on the stairs," he complained, shoving past Harry. </p><p>Harry's neighbor was a ninety-year old man who had fought in World War II. A veteran. Snape should put out for the sake of patriotism. </p><p>He had brought beer, so Harry allowed the bastard in. </p><p>"There are cobwebs everywhere," Snape muttered. </p><p>Harry had not come to Aberdeen in months. The spiders had invaded. Ron screamed bloody murder on Zoom, whenever they chatted, if a spider showed up in Harry's periphery.  </p><p>"I don't have an army of house elves dusting and cleaning," he retorted, as Snape continued grumbling, and fetched paper plates and towels. </p><p>"I hate Domino's." </p><p>Harry ignored him. </p><p>"Potter, what is this travesty?" </p><p>"Chick-Ain’t Pizza," Harry said, exhausted, as Snape grabbed the hot sauce from him. "It is vegan." </p><p>"Vegan pizza?" Snape asked, skeptical. "What are they making cheese from?"</p><p>"Cashews, I think."  Harry frowned. "Voldemort makes cashew cheese. Delphini is vegan on Tuesdays. Something about saving the world."</p><p>He wondered how Delphini fared. They texted each other, but she was at St. Mungo's, trying to handle her country's second wave of the virus. She had not the time to Zoom. Harry had wanted to ask of Voldemort, but had refrained. What would he enquire? </p><p>"Vegans? Hippies," Snape condemned. "Potter, never order this slop again."</p><p>He was right. It was unsalvageable, even with the firecracker hot sauce. Voldemort, despite his disinclination towards Delphini's fad diets, set out vegan fare better than a Domino's pizza. <em>It</em> <em>is all in the agar-agar</em>, he might have said. </p><p>"What is agar-agar?" </p><p>"Algae," Snape said absently, carefully removing the toppings from the pizza and eating the bread.  </p><p>The Guinness washed away their trauma. </p><p>"What brought you here?"</p><p>Snape shrugged, and flipped the telly on, unerringly navigating his way to Baywatch. </p><p>"What is wrong?" Harry asked, worried. </p><p>On screen, Pamela Anderson's magnificent tits bounced on the beaches of Malibu. Harry would not mind Malibu, he thought. Palms, beaches, sunshine, surfers. He was too gay for the bikini babes, but even he could admit that they added aesthetic appeal to the locale. </p><p>"Snape?"</p><p><em>I am always here,</em> went the Baywatch title song, peppy and bright. <br/>
 <br/>
"Firenze is leaving Hogwarts," Snape said finally. "Minerva is keeping Albus company. I decided to join you here." </p><p>"Where will he go?"</p><p>"The stars are obscured to him."</p><p>The stars were obscured to Firenze. What was a Magical Creature without magic?</p><p>"Where will he go?" Harry asked again, frightened. </p><p>
  <em>"I'll be ready, no, don't you fear,</em><br/>
<em>I'll be ready, forever and always, I am always here"</em>
</p><p>"He means to die," Snape said gently. </p><p>Dumbledore had been shattered by his long loneliness of decades. He had been hewn of purpose, and had left his yearning to be loved buried, married to cause and castle as he had been. Firenze had come to him after the Wall had been raised, and Dumbledore had known love as parched earth knowing rain. </p><p>"We cannot allow him!" Harry began, stricken. </p><p>Snape was silent. Dumbledore and Snape believed in euthanasia, in mercy's dispatch. They were the only ones to hold this conviction, as far as Harry knew. He buried his head in his hands. Dumbledore would have stood aside as Firenze left, despite his grief.  </p><p>"They could live together, in a little town by the sea, couldn't they? They could go to the Falklands. They could go to Bermuda!" </p><p>"The Headmaster belongs to the Castle."</p><p>"So many have lost their magic to the virus. Firenze is not the first! How can he-"</p><p>"Potter, it was his decision." </p><p>How dare Dumbledore allow Firenze to leave? He had lost his magic, but love must supersede magic, mustn't it? What was love, if not a panacea? </p><p>A hundred years of solitude, and Dumbledore had not learned. He had stood aside and let Firenze leave alone, worthless and purposeless, a magical creature that had lost his magic.  </p><p>"And if I wanted to decide?" Harry shouted, furious at Snape, furious at Dumbledore, sick and tired of their damned mercy that poisoned. "I have been alone all my life! I pop pills everyday to function! What if I wished to end this?"</p><p>Snape's expression cracked from its implacable calm into something ugly and forsaken.</p><p>"Mercy is for others, isn't it?" Harry said bitterly, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "No mercy for the Chosen One." </p><p>"You had been doing well," Snape said cautiously, his voice leavened to forced gentleness. He had learned. He had learned over the years that Harry responded better to his care than to his fury. <br/>
 <br/>
"Look at me!" Harry demanded, turning to face Snape, clutching him by the shoulders. "Look at me! I am forty, Snape! I sleep better on your sofa, or on Ron's and Hermione's, than I do on my own bed!"</p><p>His magic, fierce, crackled at the tips of his fingers, and Snape cursed and shoved him away. They ended up at opposite ends of the sofa, panting and scared, and Harry gasped when he saw the scorch marks on the sofa and the burns on Snape's shoulders. </p><p>"Snape! Are you all right?" He asked, frightened, bringing his hands to his head in alarm. </p><p>Snape doused him in a conjured jet of water. Harry's fingers stung badly. Shaking, he looked down at his hands. And saw burns. </p><p>"What-"</p><p>"Control your emotions," Snape barked. "You are not a bloody teenager, Potter!"</p><p>Snape, in times of peril, had imperturbable calm. He exhibited it once again, and healed them both up, singing in his baritone to patch up wound and burn. </p><p>"A wand of hawthorn," Harry muttered. "A woman's wand."</p><p>Hawthorn favored women, Firenze had said, for it is hawthorn that healed the broken heart. Whose heart had Snape healed? </p><p>Snape healed, unquestionably. He might enjoy spell crafting and potions, but it was in saving another that he knew his purpose. </p><p>"Not you too," Snape protested, poking Harry in the neck with his wand. "This is my second wand. I am quite pleased with it." </p><p>Snape's first wand had been broken by the Aurors after the First War, when they had taken him into custody, to Azkaban. Voldemort had said that the prisoners were castrated. Harry glanced at Snape, pitying, hoping against hope that Snape had escaped that plight. </p><p>"Keep your mind shut," Snape demanded, glaring at him. </p><p>Snape was annoyed. He was not furious. Those days of wrath were behind the two of them. They argued, but they did not truly seek to harm. They had an old man in common whom they loved dearly despite his peccadillos. </p><p>"Why did they allow it to go on?" Harry asked.</p><p>"It is the way of our people," Snape said carelessly, as if it mattered not. "Voldemort has turned chatty in his retirement, if he is regaling you with tales of old."</p><p>Voldemort was not given to chatter. He was content to listen, but on occasion, he had spoken of their history to Harry, in hesitant circumspection.   </p><p>"He is taciturn," Harry assured Snape. "Hardly doling out your secrets for supper." </p><p>"He was never a garrulous man, but Abraxas and he were given to easy companionship and banter."</p><p>Abraxas.</p><p>In November, Harry had dared. Voldemort had not refused him, but neither of them had initiated another kiss. </p><p>Harry had wanted Voldemort to- </p><p>"Potter!" Snape exclaimed. He did not betray surprise, though he seemed uneasy as he mulled over what he had gleaned. Dumbledore must have prepared him. </p><p>"Does Dumbledore tell you everything?" Harry asked, exasperated. </p><p>"Even Albus Dumbledore needs a confessor," Snape replied ominously. </p><p>Snape was Dumbledore's man, in ways Harry had never been asked to become thanks to the war's unexpected end. Even Minerva and Aberforth did not know Dumbledore as well as Snape did. </p><p>"I would have advised you against a rendezvous with Voldemort," Snape said, selecting a slice of de-topping-ed pizza bread to chew on.</p><p>"There was no rendezvous," Harry informed him grumpily. "He wasn't-" Unsure, he shrugged. </p><p>It had not been one-sided, Harry was sure. He frowned. Could it have been? Perhaps Voldemort had succumbed that night to the kiss because he had not wished to offend Harry. No, politeness was not the reason, Harry decided. Delphini had seen something between them, hadn't she? </p><p>Voldemort had been touch-starved. Perhaps he had merely sought tactility without sexual intimacy. </p><p><em>A distraction until pandemic's end</em>, they had agreed, and then had retreated. </p><p>Harry had been striving to muster his courage to discuss the matter, before Fudge had decried biomagical terrorism and used that as a pretext to demolish C.R.U.P. before the elections.  </p><p>"Were there others?" he asked Snape curiously. </p><p>"He was not given to fraternization," Snape replied, picking his words with care, eyes gleaming in suspicion as he peered at Harry. "I have heard rumors of  discreet transactional encounters in the red-light districts of Europe."</p><p>Prostitutes.</p><p>Harry had thought about paying for sex. Hermione had encouraged him, saying that it might at least decouple his sexual needs from his emotional needs. This framing of the problem had unnerved him. He had shut down the line of consideration swiftly. Voldemort, having none of his compunctions, had sought prostitutes abroad. Perhaps this explained why he was touch-starved, if he had strictly restricted himself to transactional encounters. How frequently had he partaken of this activity? Did whorehouses operate during the pandemic?  </p><p>Perhaps this was at the root of Voldemort's hesitation in moving matters forward. His distractions had been with nameless strangers for an hour or two, whose company he had paid for. Harry was no nameless stranger.  </p><p>"Once the pandemic ends, may I suggest hunting in the Muggle world?" Snape proposed.  </p><p>"When did you know that Minerva was your One?" he asked Snape.</p><p>"Twenty years before she did," Snape replied, half-solemn. "She was madly in love with Moody. I had wait for it to turn to unsalvageable cinders before I stood a chance. Fortunately, he was a wanker and she came to her senses after a decade or two."</p><p>"How did you know?" </p><p>Snape glanced across at him, puzzled. </p><p>"Did your magic know?" </p><p>"Potter." Snape sighed gustily, and cast his eyes to Harry's artex ceiling. That did not bode well. </p><p>On tenterhooks, Harry waited for the revelation. </p><p>"The Castle is sentient." </p><p>Harry frowned. He knew that. Everyone knew that. </p><p>"It was made of the magic of the Founders."</p><p>Everyone knew that. </p><p>"Powerful wizards have a tendency to delegate out the dirty work." </p><p>Harry inhaled sharply, realizing the import of Snape's reluctant disclosure. </p><p>"The magic came from other wizards," he breathed, and the stark horror of the truth unsettled him. It had been his home. It had been home to the unwanted and the discarded, again and again, and it had been built by draining the magic of wizards. Had they had a choice? </p><p>"The Headmaster is chosen by the Castle. She favors the most powerful," Snape continued. "In life, the Castle obeys him. In death, his magic becomes one with the Castle." </p><p>"What if he refuses?" Harry asked, in dawning comprehension of where Snape's allegory was leading to.</p><p>"The Castle's magic is sentient, Potter. It is suppressed by the willing sacrifice and service of Headmasters that tame it into submission and placation, but ever it lingers in the stones and in the bedrock."</p><p>"What turns magic sentient?" </p><p>Snape looked at Harry, and said, "Your curiosity has ever overridden your sense, hasn't it? Are you sure you wish to know the answer?" </p><p>Fondness, sadness, exhaustion. Snape wore them openly, for once, and his magic, strong and calm as hearthstone, brown as rust, touched Harry. And then Harry understood what he meant. </p><p>"Emotion," he whispered. "It is emotion that turns magic sentient." </p><p>"The Muggles have a term for physical diseases caused by emotional disturbances. Psychosomatic disorders. <em>She wished herself ill</em>, my father often said of my mother." Snape spoke in the tone he had used for debriefing the Order once. "Powerful wizards. Powerful emotions. Rarely do they augur well." </p><p>The One.</p><p>Dumbledore had buried Grindelwald alive in a coffin of stone. Then he had found Firenze, and stood aside when Firenze had walked away to die alone. </p><p>Voldemort had poured magic from breath to breath into Abraxas, and even a soul's sacrifice had not sufficed in the end. Then he had not taken another lover. A wall had been raised through the heart of their country, as the toll of his love. </p><p>Neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort had been given to emotional excesses, though they had both been moved to extraordinary acts, great and terrible, in the name of love.</p><p>"An Obscurial is wrought of sentient magic shaped by negative emotion," Snape said quietly. "They are powerful, nigh uncontrollable, and drains the strength of the bearer."</p><p>"As a parasite." </p><p>"Albus would take offense to that word. <em>Commensal</em>, he might say." </p><p>Snape had castigated Harry often for his emotionality. Harry, Hermione, and Ron, had once considered that a bitter man's venting. There had been a darker truth that had lurked in Snape's warnings.  </p><p>"Has it happened before?" He asked, trying to steer himself to practicalities. </p><p>"Once or twice," Snape said vaguely. </p><p>"Why would it happen now?" Harry questioned. "In my teenage, in my childhood, there had been negative emotions enough to fill the Atlantic." Sirius. The Dursleys.</p><p>"As a child, you compartmentalized your distress. As an adult, you have begun unlearning those mechanisms of defence, without supplanting them with remedies." </p><p>Snape cleared his throat and stared at the pizza crumbs. </p><p>"I speculate the pandemic has exacerbated your sense of alienation. It has taken away in an unpredictable manner the trappings of friendship you found comfort in."</p><p>The pandemic had taken a mental health toll on everyone that Harry knew. Yet, in this, as in all else, his was a sorrier lot. Magic rising to sentience from loneliness and alienation. </p><p>The Muggles described auto-immune disorders as an immune system that acts against the bearer. For wizards, magic was their immune system. And Harry's had begun acting against him, drunk on his misery. </p><p>"Dumbledore wouldn't have told me, would he?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Dumbledore's man going against his orders? "</p><p>"Albus and I are friends," Snape said, not rising to the bait. "He knows I am better placed to understand you."</p><p>Because of age? Because Snape had taught Harry? </p><p>"We are alike, though the notion discomfits me," Snape muttered. "I waited for Minerva. I clung to the idea of the One." </p><p>"My life at home had been unhappy. My life at school had been dismal. My life afterwards, in Voldemort's service, had been chaotic and terrifying. I was castrated in Azkaban in my early twenties, despite Albus's valiant defense to see me exonerated. I spent years at Hogwarts, longing for Minerva, in close proximity, while generations of students spat on an ex-Death Eater who had neither ingratiating charm nor looks." </p><p>"My practice of Occlumency saved me from a direr fate, for I could temper my emotions before they took on a darker shape. And-" Snape sighed once more, and scowled at Harry. "I have never painted myself as powerless, but I was not marked a Dark Lord's equal. Power and emotion is a volatile mixture."</p><p>"You must find someone," Snape said quietly. "Let it be a decision of your agency, before it can turn into a decision made by sentient magic. Perhaps the Muggle world-"</p><p>"I don't think I will find anyone in the Muggle world," Harry interrupted.</p><p>"This is paramount, Harry. We must not let the Obscurus come to the fore."</p><p>A cat Patronus entered the flat then. Minerva. Summoning Snape. </p><p>"Go on," Harry said pleasantly, putting on a facade of grown-up stoicism, though he wanted to cling to Snape and rage at the fate that had given him this lot to bear. "Dumbledore will need you there."</p><p>"I am your friend too," Snape muttered, none too pleased about that, and yet absolute in sincerity.    <br/>
 <br/>
----</p><p>Harry lay in his bed and wondered when he had last washed the sheets. He had freshened them up with a charm. They were of high thread count, and had a sateen finish, but they felt odd against his skin. </p><p>The fresh-laundered linen in Voldemort's house had spoiled him. Voldemort swore by line-drying the sheets in the sunshine, despite how Delphini teased him for it. </p><p>An Obscurial. </p><p>Snape had not been generous with details. Harry suspected that Dumbledore was playing it close to the chest, as the Headmaster often did when the matter was of grave import. </p><p>He would have to ask Hermione.</p><p>He hesitated to. </p><p>Hermione had enough to worry about. </p><p>Hugo was unemployed because of the pandemic, and had become a shut-in in his room, playing Dungeons and Dragons, greeting Ron and Hermione with unwarrantedly sarcastic tirades whenever they attempted to draw him out. </p><p>Rose was fretting over her prospects. She had trained to become an apiarist, but the job market was harsh on new entrants and she had no connections yet in the industry. </p><p>Hermione's Dad and Mum were alone in their home, and she was deeply worried about how her Dad was dealing with her Mum suffering from Alzheimer's, without visits to his friends or his club, without any social interaction outside the home.<br/>
  <br/>
Hermione did not have Ron's resilience. She had struggled with the social isolation even before winter had truly begun. </p><p>He would confide in Ron after Christmas, Harry decided. Then, together, they could assess if they should tell Hermione. <br/>
 <br/>
What had prevented an Obscurial arising when Dumbledore had buried Grindelwald alive in a castle of stone? </p><p>What had prevented an Obscurial arising when Voldemort had returned and found Abraxas dead and buried? </p><p>Negative emotions, Snape had said.</p><p>Grief was not a negative emotion, in magic's interpretation. To grieve, one must have loved once. Yearning, for what had never come to be, on the other hand, was a negative emotion. </p><p>It was just Harry's luck. </p><p>-----</p><p>He woke to his phone ringing. He meant to change that default ringtone, but had never got around to it, because everyone who contacted him texted him on WhatsApp or Telegram or iMessage, or Zoomed. The last to call him had been a spam auto-caller that had spoken in Mandarin.   </p><p>He blearily looked at the number. He did not recognize it. </p><p>"Hello?" </p><p>"Delphini gave me your number." </p><p>Voldemort's voice was faraway, and Harry heard the seagulls and the sea. He must be walking on the coastal path. The reception in the house was pisspoor, Delphini had often complained. </p><p>"Is she all right?"</p><p>"Yes, as well as can be expected. The pandemic has taken a toll on her spirits."</p><p>Harry remembered the bright-eyed girl he had met at Hogwarts, a lifetime ago. She had been sweet and charming, and full of hope, as only a child raised in times of peace could be. </p><p>He feared that when the pandemic ended, he would no longer recognize himself. He feared for Rose and Hugo, and for their generation that had not known existential adversity before. He feared for Dumbledore, who had been bound to a Castle irrevocable even as his lover had faded to a lonely end. </p><p>What would a return to normality mean?  </p><p>"Why did you call?" He asked Voldemort. Then he realized the abruptness of his question, and hastily added, "Nobody calls me. I have forgotten the etiquette of phone-calls." </p><p>"I called at five in the morning," Voldemort replied. It was not an apology, but it was not <em>not</em> an apology. "I called to ask if you wished to stay here until Christmas."</p><p>Until Christmas. </p><p>Delphini had said that their Christmases were at Malfoy Manor, where Narcissa hosted them. Harry had planned to go to Hogwarts. He knew that it was likely the restrictions would snap back into place, given the death tolls, unless Fudge wanted corpses in the streets on Election Day.</p><p>Until Christmas. </p><p>It was not going to solve Harry's problem of emotion made manifest, but he had been content at Swanage, in the rites and rituals of domesticity Voldemort quietly carried on with. </p><p>His sheets were mussed from how he had restlessly shifted through the night, his ceiling was too low, there was no ocean breeze to lull him to sleep from a drafty window, and he had had no cold supper awaiting him. Domino's was a travesty. There had been no monologue about bitcoin or infinite short squeezes. There were no flowers in a vase on the mantel. </p><p>"Can I come now?" he blurted out. </p><p>A pause followed, before Voldemort answered, "Breaking the law?" </p><p>"Breaking the law!" Harry said, laughing in relief. Judas Priest was the name of the game! He forgot all about Obscurials and his magic eating his emotions as a parasite. </p><p>"Hacking the border controls before breakfast," Voldemort said wryly, and rung off. </p><p>---</p><p>A knock on the door came. </p><p>"The lock doesn't latch. Come in!" Harry shouted, from where he was packing undies and jeans and socks and jumpers into a valise Hermione had given him twenty years ago when he had finally gotten rid of his Hogwarts trunk. </p><p>"That cannot be safe." </p><p>"You never lock your door." </p><p>"I have no neighbors for miles."<br/>
 <br/>
Voldemort was looking about Harry's little living room in avid curiosity. </p><p>"Delphini and Scorpius had a place like this in London," he said absently, running a finger along Harry's kitchen counter and blinking at the dust. "Their kitchen saw little use."</p><p>"The joys of living where Uber Eats delivers," Harry crowed, returning to his packing. </p><p>"Draco writes rime poetry rife with lamentations and publishes it in the International Restaurant Gazetteer each time one of his favourite restaurants closes permanently due to the pandemic." </p><p>"Is he any good at it?"</p><p>"He has a penchant for theatrics. It is the Black blood in him." </p><p>Sirius had been flamboyant. Bellatrix was notorious for her theatrics.</p><p>Delphini did not have a turn for drama. She said that she had taken after Narcissa. </p><p>Harry hesitated over a brushed wool jumper that Hermione had bought for him from Milan for his thirty-fifth birthday. She had called it Get Lucky Date Gear. </p><p>"It has been cold and rainy in Swanage," Voldemort said. "Wool shan't go amiss." </p><p>Harry packed the jumper. </p><p>----</p><p>There were new wards about the periphery of the house. </p><p>"Howlers," Voldemort explained, as he opened the door for Harry. "I am a virus smuggler of considerable renown." </p><p>"Is Delphini handling it well?" </p><p>She had not answered Harry in detail when he had enquired as to how she was holding up after the disbanding of C.R.U.P. and the false theories around how she had been the one to infect Fudge. <em>It is immaterial now</em>, she had said, and had gone on to talk about her hopes for the vaccination potions under trials. </p><p>"She is not unused to the scapegoating in yellow journalism. Being Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter attracts attention."</p><p>She was not as Harry, Ron, or Hermione. She was not as Draco. The girl had not grown up in times of war. Harry worried that she was more fragile than she showed. The pandemic's cruelty had affected her directly. She was on the frontlines and had seen unnumbered deaths. She had seen her fellow Healers collapse and give up their profession to preserve their mental health. She had seen the cost of politics in the fatalities that had been preventable with stricter social curfews. And everyday she remained at St. Mungo's, she risked being exposed to a virus that destroyed magic and left survivors squibs. </p><p>She was brilliant and capable, but she was too young to shoulder the burden she did. Did Voldemort understand her situation? </p><p>Then Harry had an epiphany, as he watched Voldemort put the kettle on. </p><p>"You protect her."</p><p>Voldemort's hand slipped on the kettle handle and water sloshed. He swore and reached for a rag to mop up the water from the stove. </p><p>In early winter's clutch, all was quiet. There was not even birdsong. </p><p>"I cannot mourn her," Voldemort said finally. </p><p>Grief was not a negative emotion. Harry looked away from where Voldemort was striving to compose himself once more. </p><p>"Crepes?"</p><p>"Yes, please." </p><p>"I made wassail yesterday," Voldemort said, as the aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon and cider filled the bright kitchen. </p><p>Out yonder, Old Harry Rocks stood cold in the stormy seas, under grey skies of thunder and lightning. It was the right weather to douse crepes in alcohol before it was nine in the morning.  </p><p>"Where are the apples from?"</p><p>"Prudence Greengrass, Periwinkle's mother, grows them in her orchard," Voldemort answered, as he placed before Harry cider-doused crepes filled with winter pear and chestnut preserves. "She declares her intent to make jam every year. She forgets, all aflutter as she becomes in the holiday season, preoccupied with her social engagements. Then the apples come to us wassailers by the bushels. Her House Elves, thankfully, possessed of more sense than her, ensure that the harvest is not wasted."</p><p>So much for Harry's pet theory that Voldemort was the only one adventurous enough to brew wassail at home.  </p><p>"Wassailed crepes I could gladly write poetry to," he announced, as he mopped up the last fragment of a crepe in a spot of wassail. </p><p>Outside, it thundered, and bright flashed a crack of lightning upon Old Harry Rocks. </p><p>"To the crepe, or its maker?"</p><p>The quiet that fell between them was heavy with the meaning of Voldemort's words. An invitation. It was an invitation. </p><p>Harry had wanted Voldemort to initiate. </p><p>The last man who had hit on Harry had been in a dingy pub in Glasgow. He had been drunk and moaning on about his ex, and had gotten cold feet before Harry could get his cock out. A regrettable, forgettable encounter. </p><p>Flirtation was not in Harry's skillset. He stared at Voldemort and wondered what the rules of the gay protocol were, about offering sex at nine in the morning. Was that coming on too strong? Was he supposed to attempt witty repartee? </p><p>"This is novel to me," Voldemort said hesitantly.</p><p>"And to me," Harry hurried to add, lest Voldemort think him worldly and expect <em>him</em> to know what to do next. </p><p>"Perhaps speaking plainly shall avail us then?" </p><p>That Harry could do. His anxiety eased.  </p><p>"What do you want?" he asked, plunging ahead.</p><p>"Whatever you wish," Voldemort hedged, fiddling with his teacup. </p><p>So much for plainspeak. </p><p>"This can't be how you negotiated in whorehouses!" Harry blurted out, and cursed when he saw the stark shock on Voldemort's features. </p><p>"I did not mean to-" </p><p>"Severus and his channels of gossip," Voldemort interrupted, waving away Harry's clumsy attempt to backtrack and apologize. </p><p>"Let us go to bed," Harry said abruptly, standing up, offering a hand. "We can negotiate there." </p><p>Voldemort looked amused, but said not a word as he took Harry's hand in his and led them to his bedroom.</p><p>The storm had turned the day as night, and all was sound and fury outside the glass-paned windows. On the roiling seas, lightning danced. </p><p>Harry's palms were sweating and he wiped them dry on his jumper. Voldemort closed the door behind them. </p><p>Harry had gained pounds in quarantine, fed fat on Voldemort's culinary exploits. He had forgotten to dye his hair. And he had- </p><p>He flinched at the next peal of thunder and wondered if it was too late to Apparate to Ron and Hermione's, and hide on their tatty sofa under Molly Weasley's knit wool blankets.</p><p>Then he breathed again, as the knot in his chest diffused, as his rattled mind slowed. </p><p>Voldemort's magic was as a lullaby, mellow, turning soft the storm's rage and bringing to the fore the gentle pitter-patter of the rain. On the mantel was a vase of winter's sweet-scented ranunculus in bloom. The linen on the bed was neatly made, with sailor corners. </p><p>"Stop throwing happiness at me!" Harry protested, when he realized what was going on. </p><p>"Fainting in anxiety would be counter-productive," Voldemort said lightly. </p><p>This lightness in words and bearing, had it been the same when he had lived with Abraxas once? One day, Harry wanted someone to banter with him in the bedroom, lightly and without bitterness or oneupmanship. </p><p>The last man who had hit on Harry had been in a dingy pub in Glasgow. He had been drunk and moaning on about his ex, and had gotten cold feet before Harry could get his cock out. A regrettable, forgettable encounter. Would Voldemort find himself incapable of the act, once they began? Would he ask Harry to leave, half-dressed? </p><p>"You must realize that I am woefully out of my depth," Voldemort said then, watching him carefully, as guarded as Harry was, and yet, willing to articulate his concern because Harry was tongue-tied. </p><p>There were four feet between them. </p><p>First things first. Harry closed the distance to Voldemort and took his face in his hands for a kiss. The physicality of it calmed his frazzled nerves and he closed his eyes and gave himself over to sensation. This time, Voldemort moved his mouth with an ounce of deliberation, joining Harry in the kiss, keen in gesture even if unpracticed in execution. </p><p>He kissed Harry as a man who had thought many a time of kissing Harry. </p><p>It was then that Harry understood how surprised Voldemort must have been that first time, when he had remained petrified to Harry's kiss.  </p><p>Boldly, Harry looped his arms about Voldemort's waist and tugged him close. Voldemort moved easily into his hold, without breaking their kiss. A hand came to Harry's shoulder and another to his cheek. </p><p>They managed to find their way clumsily to the bed, and tumbled onto it, pell-mell. Harry wound up beside Voldemort, as they caught their breath.  </p><p>This time, when it thundered, Harry's heart leapt in glee. </p><p>"Your magic is exuberant," Voldemort said, and the helpless smile he wore, pained, stung. </p><p>Harry remembered what Snape had said about Obscurials, about powerful wizards and their emotions uncontrolled. Perhaps this was not a good idea. How could he hope to rein in his emotions when they had sex?  </p><p>"Does it hurt you?"</p><p>"Only the sting of living," Voldemort said, pulling him into another kiss. </p><p>What was Harry to make of that cryptic answer? Trusting cryptic men had not led Harry astray. He decided to trust Voldemort.  On a whim, emboldened, he vanished their clothes. Voldemort's gasp of surprise, swallowed in their kiss, was a pleasant victory Harry gladly claimed. </p><p>Gay men negotiated top or bottom at this juncture, Harry knew. He had never gotten that far with anyone. He would have to Google it for the next time.</p><p>He wanted to be fucked. He had waited twenty years for that. </p><p>"Fuck me?"</p><p>"I cannot promise I shall be any good at it," Voldemort cautioned him, distracted as Harry kissed down elbow and wrist to fingers that tasted of apples. Wassail. </p><p>"Get to it," Harry insisted, when Voldemort seemed content to be held and kissed. </p><p>Touch-starved as Voldemort was, it took a few tries to bring him to focus on Harry's demands again.  </p><p>"Such haste!" Voldemort complained, though his smile belied his good humor. </p><p>Haste? Harry had bloody waited two decades for a cock in his arse. </p><p>Foreplay turned out to be another of the acts where Voldemort believed magic inferior to manual labor. Harry blushed and obeyed when Voldemort asked him to part his legs. He found a handy pillow to smother his gasps. </p><p>He had heard tales on the internet, in the gay community, of first-times that went awry and ended in blood and tears and trauma. Voldemort went about sex as he went about cooking, with a goodly mix of curiosity and care. </p><p>"Your magic is calmer."   </p><p>It must be the strangest compliment paid during foreplay, by a man when he had fingers deep in his partner's arse. </p><p>"I understand you are rusty," Harry said, laughing at what his life had come to, and found himself decidedly happy in the moment. "It is customary to praise my cock at this stage of the proceedings."</p><p>"My praise shall be rusty," Voldemort teased, and bent to suck Harry's cock, while moving his fingers carefully in preparation.</p><p>Inexperienced. Rusty. What did it matter? The enthusiasm Voldemort brought to this made Harry's toes curl in want's dance. He tried to focus on the storm, on the song of the rain, and all he succeeded in was to learn intimately every place where his cock met the warm flesh of the mouth on it. Remembering sexual etiquette at the last minute, he tapped Voldemort's cheek in warning. In vain. Voldemort shifted into Harry's touch, pressing his cheek to Harry's palm, and then spluttered. Despite his shock, he did not jerk about his fingers in Harry.   </p><p>"I warned you!"  </p><p>Eyes watering, Voldemort summoned a glass of water and drank it down. </p><p>"I did warn you," Harry said, torn between sympathy and satiation. </p><p>"I thought it was intended as a caress," Voldemort explained, and bent to kiss him once more.  </p><p>Oh, he had thought Harry was cupping his cheek in a lover's caress. Had Abraxas done that? Voldemort seemed to have put their mishap behind him, and was focusing once more on stretching Harry. </p><p>"Get to it," Harry insisted finally. "You have prepared me enough to try fisting!"</p><p>"A fist?" Voldemort asked, alarmed, trying to assess if Harry was in earnest. </p><p>At some point, Harry would need to explain modern kink terms and practices to him, if only to see his shock and horror. Harry would also need to caveat that he only knew about them from the internet and from pornography, and that he wanted to try none of them. </p><p>"Your cock will do for today," Harry teased him. </p><p>"Good. That is all you are getting," Voldemort murmured. </p><p>He lied. </p><p>His magic moved first, sweeping vast over Harry's, in evergreen's velveteen. It sought the crevices and nooks where Harry's magic hid, and lulled him to wanton surrender. Outside, the storm ceased, and the seas sought their calm.</p><p>Then he took Harry, slow and steady, and met him in erratic kisses throughout. </p><p>When it was over, after he had cleaned up Harry and neatened the bed as best as he could, he came to lie beside Harry, in splayed, limp satiation. </p><p>So this was a fuck. Harry approved of the act. All was mellow in his mind in its aftermath. Even his long-nursed anxieties about love and partnership had receded. Was this why Snape had asked him to get laid? Was this why Hermione had often advocated the idea of a Mr. Right Now? Sex was no cure, but it was a palliative. </p><p>Harry brought a palm absently to cup Voldemort's cheek, and smiled when the man shifted into his touch. </p><p>"Any pain?"</p><p>"Only the sting of living," Harry said shamelessly, borrowing Voldemort's words of earlier. </p><p>----</p><p>Later, at dinner, halfway through a monologue on why Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States, amidst a fierce teardown of the retributive justice system, Voldemort asked Harry, "Is fisting a kink of yours?"</p><p>"I did not know that you knew the word <em>kink"</em>, Harry remarked, laughing, glad that he had swallowed his food before Voldemort had spoken. Everything he knew of Voldemort's sex life pointed to signs of a wholesome and vanilla enterprise. "No, fisting is not a kink of mine."</p><p>Harry was a qualified armchair expert on kink, having edited Ron's and Hermione's novellas that had accumulated increasingly bizarre kinks over the years, and having consumed copious quantities of pornography at the expense of his sore right hand. </p><p>"Your generation did not invent kink," Voldemort muttered, and returned to his tirade on prison reforms. </p><p>Harry was tempted to ask what kink Voldemort's generation had invented, but speaking of prison reform had transformed Voldemort's reserve into passion, and he was carrying on with elan, detailing to Harry the many merits and drawbacks of imprisonment as an effective deterrent to crime in a fast modernizing society. </p><p>Voldemort paused speaking and stared at him wide-eyed. </p><p>"Your magic."</p><p>"What is it?" Harry asked, concerned. His wayward magic, running high on emotion, was becoming a trouble he did not know to solve. Voldemort was more attuned to it than Harry was. </p><p>Voldemort's magic bloomed about him, and showed Harry what he had not seen. Hedges of holly were marching on the evergreen, willful and wanton, and bright bloomed their berries prickling teasingly against the expanse of Voldemort's magic. </p><p>"I think you may have invented a kink, after all," Voldemort said wryly.  </p><p>Flustered, Harry seized his pudding spoon and rapped Voldemort on the knuckles. </p><p>Then he remembered what Snape had said, and tried to bring his emotions to calm by focusing his gaze on the sea by the cliffs. The storm had subsided, and the moon-washed waves rolled smooth to the shore.  </p><p>"Is that unusual?" he managed to ask, and hated the tremble in his voice. </p><p>He knew it was unusual. He knew it was the <em>creature</em> coming to life in him fed on his unhappiness.</p><p>Voldemort, busy with the dishes, hummed. </p><p>"Have you seen it before?" Harry tried again. </p><p>"I was told that I had been given to similar mishaps in my youth."</p><p>Abraxas. Abraxas had noticed this. Harry resisted the urge to tear out his hair. He was a man of forty, hardly a teenager. </p><p>"Then your magic turned normal?" He queried hopefully. </p><p>"My magic was hardly an isolated entity, as yours. It had mingled with that of the Castle, and then-"</p><p>And then, it had been bound to another, and then, it had been torn into seven in a foolish attempt to keep another alive. </p><p>Voldemort had feared loneliness. And he had done everything in his power, and a great many things beyond his power, to eradicate that fate.</p><p>Harry wondered if he should have married Ginny, all those years ago. He had loved her, even if he had not wanted sex. Then, the world had been wide-open and it had been a world without war. Finding love had seemed a quest simpler than any he had been appointed to until then.</p><p>"My case is singularly unrepresentative," Voldemort said delicately, neatly sidestepping the scars of them. </p><p>Then, clearing his throat, meeting Harry's gaze with a marked degree of tentativeness, he said, "I am unused to sharing my bed."</p><p>Harry knew what he meant. He mourned another and wanted no other in that place. </p><p>"We have slept together before," he pointed out, and wondered if the need he knew was evident in his features. </p><p>Voldemort nodded and said nothing more. It was not an invitation, but it was acquiescence. Harry would take what he got. He was damned if he slept alone when he did not have to, not when he had had the best sleep of his life in Voldemort's bed.</p><p>"I have a few trades to see to," Voldemort said. "Go on to bed. I will join you in an hour."</p><p>-----</p><p>The flannel of Voldemort's winter sheets was warm and worn against Harry's skin, as only quality flannel washed many times over could be. </p><p>Harry had gone through a phase of hedonism in his twenties, changing his linens and furniture at whim, heady on independence and freedom and riches that seemed obscene for a starving boy that had only known a cupboard. And he had found himself happier on Ron's and Hermione's Buy It For Life tatty sofa that had been indelibly stained by two children. </p><p>He wondered if Delphini had come for the weekends, as a child. What had been their parental arrangement? Divorcees shared custody, didn't they? Had Bellatrix and Rodolphus allowed only visitation rights? </p><p>As if waking to his thoughts, he began hearing voices. He blinked. The curtains moved without a wind, and he overheard a conversation through thickly insulated walls.  </p><p>Delphini, speaking to Voldemort. </p><p>"So we mean to roll out the vaccine potions in Leeds first, since they are the hardest hit today. If we can bring down the hospitalization rates-" she sighed. "Oh, Papa, it is Christmas, and Madam Marchbanks refuses to reinstate the restrictions." </p><p>"Should I speak to her?"</p><p>"She carries on so whenever you do. If you wanted to have a say, you should come work for the government, she mutters." </p><p>"I am a defanged revolutionary, utterly unsuited to politics."</p><p>"We could ask Aunt Narcissa to run." </p><p>"They will never vote for anyone without magic."</p><p>"Fudge doesn't have magic." </p><p>"They have distracted their electorate from that, by focusing on a healer of questionable qualifications, appointed by nepotism, smuggling into their country a virus to steal their magic and leave them weakened-"</p><p>"So that the evil Dark Lord may rise again victorious and dance upon the bones of his victims." </p><p>"You have inherited Bella's macabre humor," Voldemort said, laughing.</p><p>Harry had never heard him so carefree.</p><p>One day, in that little cottage on the Scottish northwest coast, he would have this too. He summoned his wishing pot to record his new preference, and found that he had forgotten to pack it. Oh, well, after Christmas. Scrambling about, he found his phone, and opened his gazillion dating apps that Hermione had installed for him. <em>Open to dating single fathers</em>, he added, removing his previous constraint that prospective matches should not have children. Many of his preferences had changed, he realized. He no longer wanted someone that preferred the city. He had no desire to find someone ambitious and self-actualized. He wanted nobody whose primary hobby was to travel the world and experience new restaurants. </p><p>"Have you heard of magic manifesting on emotion?" Voldemort was asking Delphini.</p><p>"An Obscurus?" Delphini wondered. "Mum says that whenever my stomach grumbles, it is an Obscurus eating its way through my intestines." </p><p>Then she inhaled sharply, and asked, "Who is it, Papa?" </p><p>"I have not met an Obscurial before," Voldemort said thoughtfully. "They were made extinct, after the stringent enforcement of the Statute of Secrecy came about, or so I have heard." </p><p>"Oh, Papa! There will be always some in older families, get of men bedding their help, oppressed and abused and disallowed a wand," Delphini said kindly. "Sometimes, they run away, and a Good Samaritan brings them to St. Mungo's. They don't survive to adulthood, and those that do are put into solitary confinement for the safety of others. They die there, magic eating them alive" </p><p>Her voice bore compassion, and a healer's struggle to find peace with the ways of the world. Harry realized he was cold, despite the warm blankets of wool he had piled atop himself. </p><p>"Have you seen a case where mere emotion gives rise to manifestation?"</p><p>"Papa, that is unprecedented." She hummed thoughtfully. "There is no reason why it cannot occur, theoretically. A mixture of power and emotion is unpredictable, at any age, if there has been a long history of emotional turbulence chipping away at the separation between the mind and the magic."   </p><p>Then, her voice turned wary, as she asked, frightened, "What is it, Papa? Are you experiencing any of the symptoms?"</p><p>"Put me down if I do," Voldemort said dryly. "I am sure Narcissa will oblige if you ask her nicely. She has had enough of madmen, she holds."</p><p>"Papa, this is not a joke." </p><p>"No, no, I am quite well," he assuaged her. "The pandemic has taken its toll on my mental health."</p><p>"As it has taken its toll on everyone's," she said bracingly. </p><p>"Indeed. And I wondered, how someone who had been faring poorly, emotionally, before it began, might be coping."</p><p>"Are we still speaking in the abstract?" Delphini asked cautiously. </p><p>"Were I truly worried, I would tell you." <br/>
 <br/>
"No, you wouldn't." </p><p>"I shall tell you after the pandemic," he told her gently. "Go on. Ladle out your vaccine potions. Let us be rid of the virus first. Come home."</p><p>"Miss me, Papa?" </p><p>"You, my balm, of then and now," he told her, and the sincerity in his voice was stark. Harry knew a strange premonition, as if someone had walked over his grave right then. </p><p>"It should be over by midsummer, Papa." </p><p>"Hope should be your middle name."</p><p>"Aunt Narcissa shall be displeased that you are plotting to change my middle name! She relishes calling me <em>Delphini Narcissa Lestrange</em> whenever Scorpius and I get into trouble."</p><p>"Halloween then," she continued merrily. "We shall be done with the virus by Halloween." </p><p>All Hallows's Eve. Harry wondered how Voldemort remembered that day. Harry did his best to avoid Halloween celebrations and spent the day as a shut-in with Ron and Hermione, or at Hogwarts. </p><p>-----</p><p>A message from Dumbledore showed up on his phone.</p><p>It was a reply to the barrage of messages Harry had sent him over the past day. </p><p>"All is well," Dumbledore had written. </p><p>All was not well. Harry sent a heart emoji in reply. Dumbledore sent two back. </p><p>-----</p><p>Voldemort came to bed, freshly bathed, smelling of soap, dressed in his winter's flannel. Harry wondered what the etiquette was to sleep in the nude.</p><p>"Your magic is prickly again," Voldemort muttered, slipping into bed beside him. "What is it?"</p><p>Hermione had drilled into Harry that gay men were swayed by confidence. He grabbed his wand and spoke a spell to leave them both nude. </p><p>"It is <em>winter</em>," was Voldemort's complaint, but he did not put up a protest when Harry dragged him close. </p><p>Nestled between flannel and wool, warmed by a line of skin, Harry felt oddly content. </p><p>"When this ends, after the pandemic, you wish to find the One," Voldemort murmured. </p><p>Harry nodded against his shoulder, and pressed a kiss for good measure. </p><p>"What is the One?"</p><p>"The One." Harry pondered the question, thinking back to the dating preferences he had changed on his apps. He had never articulated his wish in earnest to anyone before, he realized, though his friends knew the gist of it. </p><p>"Someone I can live in a cottage by the sea with. A quiet, easy life, where I don't have to hide." </p><p>"Hide?" </p><p>He did not want to hide the ugly parts of himself, that he hid even from himself. How many times had he refrained from worrying Ron and Hermione, knowing that they had had enough on their plate to deal with? Snape and Dumbledore knew Harry well, and would often perceptively guess at his problems before he spoke of them, but they were men who dealt in the abstractions of problem-solving, even if they were kind and well-intentioned, and did not truly understand the desperate need Harry had to connect emotionally. He did not need to be solved, he merely wanted to be held, despite his inadequacies.  </p><p>He turned to Voldemort, and saw how pensively he was watching Harry. A flash of lightning caught his eyes and he blinked, startled. Harry had the urge to kiss his eyelids then. </p><p>"What told you that Abraxas was the One?"</p><p>"The One?" Voldemort asked, smiling, pained. The grief he wore was plain and potent and writ in every line and shadow on him. "He was the first to speak to me."</p><p>And nobody else had conversed with him, until then. </p><p>Harry knew how he had eagerly clutched close a Half-Giant's friendship. Hagrid had been the first to speak to him. Hagrid was indisputably happy in Beauxbatons with Madam Maxime. And as deeply as Harry loved him, the problem of interspecies intimacy boggled him. </p><p>"Did your magic know?"</p><p>"Minerva knew me then," Voldemort said quietly, taking Harry's hand in his and inspecting his unlined palm. </p><p>Fate-lines, Firenze had called them. Harry's had vanished gradually through his teenage. Trelawney had predicted a hundred awful deaths, stating that an absence of fate's lines meant death. Firenze had tossed that theory out, calling it balderdash. <em>An absence of fate's lines is an absence of fate</em>, he had told Harry. Hermione had researched the phenomenon extensively, and had not come up with a single case from recorded history's archives. </p><p>"My magic was as a limb over which I had fine motor-control, once," Voldemort said, and the wistfulness of his voice cut. "In the mornings, Abraxas would hold me for what must have been hours, and gently speak to me about what I had been once, so that my mind could find moorings in the fineness of what it had been."  </p><p>Abraxas had loved him through it all. He had been a madman's last sanctuary. Even if Voldemort's magic had turned against him, gorged on emotion, Abraxas would have held him. Voldemort may not have looked for the One. He had found it nevertheless, and it had ruined him and their world, and had condemned a boy to a cupboard. </p><p>"Be careful what you wish for, Harry," Voldemort said, taking his palm, wiped clean of fate's line, and pressing a kiss to the center of it, and happiness surged in Harry, without reason. </p><p>"Stop throwing happiness at me," he complained. </p><p>"Is that your wish?"</p><p>Harry shook his head. </p><p>"I wish it was real." </p><p>He wished it had been born of his heart, and not by another's magic manipulating waves of emotion directed unto him. </p><p>"It is magic. It is real."</p><p>----</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. E</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, the chapter is titled E. If you guess why, let me know. Drinks on me. </p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
<em>December 2020 </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>On Christmas Eve, Harry could not sleep. </p><p>He had ordered gifts on Amazon, to be shipped to Aberdeen. He would go directly to his flat in the morning, and then to Hogwarts, gifts in tow. </p><p>They had not had sex that night. Voldemort had joined him in bed well after two, because he was up late to exploit after-market volatility. Harry had not understood the details, but Voldemort's trading was in derivatives, not in units of real stock; very little of it made sense to Harry. The Bloomberg terminal he hacked into was a stream of green symbols on black screens. He refused to pay for a license. </p><p>Harry must have imbibed more than he ought to have of the mulled wine Voldemort had made, because he could not sleep. Tossing and turning, restless, he wondered if he should just give up on sleep and play Animal Crossing on his phone. </p><p>He made to get up, but Voldemort threw out a hand across his chest. </p><p>"Go back to sleep," Harry said softly. </p><p>"Will you return?" </p><p>"It is nearly five. I plan to leave at seven."</p><p>Voldemort did not reply. </p><p>Harry realized then what he had meant. </p><p>"If you wish," he said guardedly. </p><p>"If you wish," Voldemort parried. </p><p>Harry suppressed a sigh. They were honest in the medium of touch. He dared caress Voldemort's sleep-creased face. As a bloom to the sun, Voldemort shifted into his hand, and pressed his lips to the core of Harry's palm. </p><p>"All right," Harry decided. "Fetch me from Aberdeen once you are back from Wiltshire." </p><p>------</p><p>"Merry Christmas, Harry!" </p><p>Dumbledore had put on a cheery front, and was arrayed in his customary Christmas getup of glittering robes of red and green, and a hat with star-shaped LEDs that even Santa Claus would have hesitated to don. </p><p>Close to, his facade was imperfect. His eyes were red from sleepless nights of grief. His cheeks were sunken and there were new lines on his forehead that marked bleak mourning. The spindly glass paraphernalia of his office lay cluttered about, and Fawkes, on his perch, was drooping, as a faithful vane to Dumbledore's mood.</p><p>Standing six feet away, Harry longed to embrace him. </p><p>Snape had said that nobody had heard from Firenze after his departure. Dumbledore had not emerged from his quarters for days, though he had allowed Snape entry. Even Albus Dumbledore needed a confessor.  </p><p>Who had been there for Dumbledore when he had returned after locking up Grindelwald alive in a coffin of stone? Harry had heard the tale from Minerva, of how the Castle had killed Dippet while Dumbledore had been away, and of how young Riddle had held the Castle under the rein of his magic until Dumbledore returned. And when Dumbledore had come back to Hogwarts, a lonely victor, the Castle had chosen him as hers.</p><p>In merry red and green, wearing cheer for Harry's sake, Dumbledore stood the loneliest man in the world. </p><p>The parchments on Dumbledore's desk rustled. </p><p>The Headmaster's expression changed minutely to fierce concern, before he masked it once more. </p><p>"You might as well as tell me," Harry said tiredly. </p><p>Before coming to Dumbledore's office, he had detoured to the library, to look up his condition, and had found nothing of pertinence. The sufferers the tomes spoke of had developed their parasites in their childhood, and had not survived past adolescence. </p><p>"There is no precedent. I have some theories. Perhaps I should show you," Dumbledore said, equally exhausted. </p><p>He must have pulled himself out of his mourning to research Harry's condition. </p><p>Harry had sent him a heart emoji.</p><p>Dumbledore had sent back two. </p><p>Dr. Who had two hearts. </p><p>Dumbledore had protected Harry, imperfectly, flawed in his understanding,  eccentric, and yet unflinchingly full of love.</p><p>"Show me," Harry said, trusting.</p><p>Dumbledore took up his wand of elder and pointed it at Harry. </p><p>"Close your eyes." </p><p>Harry closed his eyes, and the Castle's magic bloomed about him, ancient and blue, anchored to Dumbledore's own magic. Her emotions were sharp and poignant, restless and potent, and against the churning eddies of her sentience, Dumbledore's power stood strong as a seawall, barricading her emotions from the denizens that made home in her. And embracing the wild seas of her magic, as Swanage's coast, lay the evergreen of Voldemort, soothing, quelling unrest into submission. </p><p>"She drank of the emotions of the Founders, of the wizards and witches that gave their magic to raise stone in pillar and nave, and of the hundreds that have walked her halls afterwards."</p><p>"But the Castle is not a living thing!" Harry exclaimed, horrified. </p><p>"What is a living thing?" Dumbledore wondered. "She experiences emotion, even if she cannot understand it. She has a measure of awareness, and a measure of agency. She responded to Tom's clumsy attempts to heal her when he had been a mere boy of eleven. She sought to be rid of Armando so that she may have me." </p><p>"The books in the library said this happens only in children," Harry said softly. "Why is it happening to me now, Dumbledore?"</p><p>"Psychology is Severus's strength, not mine," Dumbledore replied, apologetic. "However, I suspect he merely appropriates psychobabble from James Bond films."</p><p>"You have a theory," Harry retorted, knowing well by now the mark of Dumbledore withholding something for Harry's sake. </p><p>"Only a theory," Dumbledore murmured, eyes flicking to where Harry's scar was. "Minerva says that your gut instinct is luck. You and I know differently. You are blessed with extraordinary intuition. This intuition, some may say, is magic's sentience."</p><p>Harry had heard about his gut instincts from many. Snape called it dumb luck. Minerva and Hermione held similar opinions. Ron called Harry a good guesser. </p><p>"Your magic is searching for an equal, Harry."</p><p>An equal. Snape had said the same.</p><p>"The prophecy was invalidated a long time ago." </p><p>"Your magic is sentient, not conscious," Dumbledore said gently. "It does not possess rationality." </p><p>Rationality. Voldemort had lost his sanity gradually over the years. Harry did not want to die raving mad. </p><p>Dumbledore must have seen his horror, because he made to step forward, but the social distancing alarm clanged. </p><p>"It is not dire, my darling boy," he said, reassuring. "This is why I showed you the Castle, Harry. For many hundreds of years, the Headmaster and the Castle have been one. This balanced the Castle's emotional sentience with the Headmaster's rationality."</p><p>"You think I can control the magic," Harry said, turning hopeful again on seeing Dumbledore's confidence. Then he frowned. "Snape was right. I don't have the strength of mind to control my magic. I was pants at Occlumency."</p><p>"There are other ways. The establishment of a relationship that fulfills the criteria is likely to have ameliorating effects. I understand that therapy may provide value. In the end, what matters is that you make your peace with your magic's wishes. An integration, if you will." </p><p>"Why is it searching for an equal?"</p><p>Harry knew the answer before Dumbledore spoke. </p><p>"You have been searching for an equal, Harry. Your magic understands equality in its currency."</p><p>Integration. Make his magic understand that he was not looking for a magical equal. The new age books Hermione kept quoting from talked about a holistic healing of the mind, the body, and the soul. </p><p>Then he had another realization. </p><p>Dumbledore, ever attuned to Harry, smiled sadly, and turned to Fawkes, fussing over the bird, giving him privacy to wrap his mind about the epiphany.</p><p>How far they had come, Harry mused. Once, Dumbledore would have sought to aid Harry by bringing up abruptly whatever private matter Harry was grappling with. Over the years, Dumbledore had learned to heed Harry's nature, and trusted him to bring up matters on his own as needed.   </p><p>"You knew," Harry settled for saying. "You knew all along, that this was the basis of my attraction to him." </p><p>Dumbledore's eyes widened in surprise, and he hastily shook his head. </p><p>"Have you ever seen him perform magic in your vicinity, Harry?"</p><p>Harry thought about it.</p><p>"His wand!" He exclaimed. "I have not seen him use his wand at Swanage." </p><p>"I suspect he left it with Narcissa," Dumbledore speculated. </p><p>"What do you mean?" Harry asked, puzzled. </p><p>"It is their tale to tell," Dumbledore demurred, and the softness of his tone belied the steel in him to keep that secret. "What I can tell you, Harry, is that your magic seeks an equal. However, the entanglement you have acquired is not of your magic's make. It is a human thing, spelled of simpatico loneliness."</p><p>A human thing, spelled of simpatico loneliness.<br/>
 <br/>
Harry dug his fingers into his sleeves, crossing his arms. Fawkes trilled. <em>A human thing</em>, and magic had had no hand in it. </p><p>"A distraction, until pandemic's end," he said quietly. "We wanted nothing else."</p><p>Voldemort was clever. He had begun putting together the pieces. He had asked Delphini about Obscurials. In the books Harry had read in the library of Hogwarts, there had been many references to evil wizards exploiting the helpless outbursts of the Obscurials against their enemies. </p><p>"He has no war left in him," Dumbledore said dryly. "None of us do."</p><p>That was true, Harry knew. Voldemort's life was Delphini. He had no ambition outside her well-being.</p><p>"Why does he then-" he shook his head. </p><p>"Why does he continue to host you? Why does he continue your entanglement?" Dumbledore sighed. "I cannot speak for Tom. However, I can state with certainty that there is no precedent."</p><p>No precedent.</p><p>Everything to do with Harry had no precedent. Surprise in Voldemort's magic was the red of holly. Harry's fate had vanished from the stars and from his palms. A boy who lived in a cupboard, an Obscurial formed at forty. </p><p>No precedent. </p><p>Voldemort had been hesitant to share his bed, as an ongoing arrangement. </p><p>"He made fish and chips when I asked him to."</p><p>Voldemort had said, reluctantly, that he hated fish and chips, because it had been the most common food in skip-bins to scavenge at the height of the war. </p><p>"Tom has no fondness for fried fish," Dumbledore remarked. "He avoided dinner on Friday nights when the dish was served at Hogwarts."</p><p>Harry kneaded his eyes tiredly. </p><p>"I don't understand, Dumbledore. He was clear that he was interested purely in a distraction. He lives as a widower." </p><p>Harry did not want anything else. He wanted the pandemic to end, and to solve his life. The fluttering unrest he knew then was to do with the sorry fact that he would be leaving behind the domesticity and the easy entanglement they had managed to find. </p><p>"Your preferences have changed, in what you seek."</p><p>Yes. Harry's dating preferences had changed. </p><p>Dumbledore moved closer, hand reaching out as if to pat Harry on the shoulder, but the social distancing spell screeched once more. Sorrow flashed across his features, at the enforced separation.</p><p>"Delphini said that we should have enough vaccine potions for everyone by the end of March," Harry offered. </p><p>Griselda and Fudge were haggling over the supply chain, and about the terms of collaboration. Griselda needed glass for the vials from Scotland. Fudge needed the potion from her. The potion trial was still nascent in Europe. They could seek American aid, but by the time the Americans finished healing and immunizing their own, there might not be anyone left alive in Britain. So Fudge and Griselda had been forced to make diplomatic truce, temporarily, and had come to the negotiating table once more. Ferrying supplies across the River Tweed was easier than across the Atlantic. </p><p>"Miss Lestrange," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "You have come to be fond of her."</p><p>"She is a sweet girl," Harry replied. "I doubt there is anyone acquainted with her who isn't fond of her."</p><p>And wasn't that an opinion he might have balked at, before meeting Delphini? Given who her parents were, she was extraordinarily well-adjusted. Once more, he was curious about the girl's childhood. Had she been raised by Narcissa and Draco? That might explain her sensibility. </p><p>"Voldemort suspects the situation," he admitted, reverting to their earlier discussion. "He asked Delphini about Obscurials." </p><p>"He is the cleverest fool I know," Dumbledore said, beaming. "To stay in close proximity to an Obscurial without even a wand! Ah, Tom! His record of questionable decision-making remains untarnished." </p><p>Voldemort's interest in Harry was not manipulation. Harry knew that, instinctively. Dumbledore concurred. </p><p>Harry was scared of what lived in his skin. Voldemort had not shown signs of wariness in his dealings with him. What was-</p><p>"Surely he cannot be as lonely as to risk this?" Harry said, aghast. </p><p>Voldemort was touch-starved, and over Harry's stay at Swanage, he had slowly begun to speak more. While Harry wanted sex, he suspected that Voldemort might have settled for tactility and conversation. </p><p>"The heart's filthy lesson, as Severus says, is no kind one," Dumbledore remarked.</p><p>The weight of meaning in his words startled Harry from his contemplation of Voldemort's motivations.</p><p>The heart's filthy lesson.  </p><p>----</p><p>The Christmas feast at Hogwarts was muted. The rapid spread of the virus through the ranks of the House Elves had resulted in mass quarantine. </p><p>Snape had ordered take-out from Glasgow's <em>The Butterfly and the Pig</em>, based on Hermione's recommendation. </p><p>Harry helped him arrange the spread. Ron and Hermione joined them. From six feet away, Hermione blew Harry a kiss. The dark circles about her eyes were not from burning the midnight oil on reading.  </p><p>"Quarantine pounds, Harry?" Ron teased. </p><p>For the first time in his life, Harry had gained a belly. It had alarmed him when he had been pulling on a pair of older jeans. </p><p>"You haven't dyed your hair," Hermione remarked. </p><p>"He hasn't, in a while," Snape said, observant as ever. </p><p>"You haven't shaved," Ron commented. </p><p>"Stop discussing me!"</p><p>Harry had let himself go. It was not as if he had anyone to clean up for. And he had forgotten to pack his shaving set before heading to Swanage. </p><p>"Rose would call you a <em>hobo</em>, Harry!" Hermione said, laughing. </p><p>It was good to see her laugh, even if it was at Harry's expense. He rolled his eyes and returned to helping Snape set out the feast. Minerva, who had been chatting with Aurora, came over to help Harry with laying out the silverware.</p><p>They arranged the seats six feet apart about the large table. </p><p>Firenze was not there. </p><p>Flitwick was not there. </p><p>Dumbledore rallied on, with good cheer, and took the rest of them along, with jokes and songs and tall tales. </p><p>"Do you mean to return to Swanage, Harry?" Hermione asked. Her concern was plain. She must think him off his rocker. </p><p>"I spoke to Malfoy," she went on. </p><p>"Malfoy?" Draco? Surprised, Harry turned to her. </p><p>"I wanted to see if you were safe!" she said unapologetically. "I tracked him down on Facebook. We had a few Zoom calls." </p><p>Harry was touched by her initiative. Malfoy, though? He had no reason to be truthful. Perhaps he should introduce Hermione to Delphini.</p><p>What had Malfoy said?</p><p>"He assured me that there is no war left in Voldemort," she whispered. </p><p>Snape raised his goblet in toast. Slick wanker. Overhearing everything. Harry glanced to where both Dumbledore and Ron were pretending to not listen in. Minerva was faking immersion in her conversation with Aurora.   </p><p>Pesky eavesdroppers all! </p><p>"The most outrageous act he has committed is serving crepes in wassail," Harry  let on. </p><p>Ron raised his eyebrows. Snape frowned. </p><p>"He served me horsemeat once, in Bonn," Dumbledore reminisced. "Rheinischer Sauerbraten, in the traditional manner."</p><p>"What was he doing in Bonn?" Hermione demanded to know. </p><p>"What were you doing in Bonn?" Snape asked. "I thought the Germans refused you a visa because you have no birth certificate." </p><p>Dumbledore winked. </p><p>Illegal entry via border control hacking through the nefarious spindly instrument cabal that Dumbledore and Voldemort were the only members of. Who made the glass equipment? It must not be a profitable business. </p><p>"Albus, you are Headmaster of Hogwarts. You cannot be trespassing illegally!" Minerva protested. </p><p>"Why did he serve you horse-meat?" Ron asked, pragmatic, jumping ahead to the most pertinent question. </p><p>"Rheinischer Sauerbraten was traditionally made with horse-meat," Dumbledore said pleasantly, returning to his mulled wine. "There are controversial opinions on whether it should be served with apple butter or red currant jelly. Now, I myself hold that apple butter is the canon." </p><p>"Then we have no use for canon," Ron held, upstanding fan-fiction writer that he was. </p><p>----</p><p>After the feast, Harry, Ron, and Hermione cloaked and booted up, and went to the Astronomy tower. They spread Sinistra's old tigerskin rugs on the cold stones and settled in with beer, under the rising moon. </p><p>Saturn stood bright overhead. </p><p>"The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction," Hermione said, catching notice of Harry's interest. "Last week was the closest Jupiter and Saturn had come to each other in their orbits in more than eight hundred years."</p><p>"Hermione made me buy a telescope on Amazon. We traipsed down to the botanical gardens with Rose. Hugo refused to come along. We set up the telescope and watched the conjunction. There were hundreds of families there that night, in bubbles of their own, skygazing. It was the first time in a year that I felt <em>human</em>."</p><p>Harry knew what Ron meant. There were no Quidditch matches at large stadiums, or concerts, or even political rallies. No drinks at pubs or dining out. No festivals or fairs. Life had shrunk down to their bubblehead charms and gadget screens.</p><p>"Percy said that you refused to join the government's new pandemic response team." </p><p>Susan had joined. </p><p>"I was tired," Harry said quietly. </p><p>He was tired. </p><p>"Draco said that you are sleeping with him," Hermione whispered, eyes firmly on the skies. Ron scowled and made a face, and threw Harry another bottle of Guinness. </p><p>How had Draco known? Delphini must have gossiped. </p><p>"A distraction. Until pandemic's end."</p><p>"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, horrified. "Living with a madman is bad enough. Sleeping with him?"</p><p>"Consensual sex is good for you. Endorphins," Hermione said brightly, supportive of even Harry's worst decisions. </p><p>"The sex has been a recent addition," Harry confessed. "I don't think he is really into it." </p><p>Voldemort craved touch, and could linger for hours content with the freedom to reach out and touch another's flesh. He had not refused sex, and was invariably enthusiastic in the moment, but he had not sought it of Harry. It had been of Harry's initiation, the few times they had had attempted sexual intimacy. </p><p>"You are Harry Potter. Every gay wizard from Gala to Fife will line up for a chance with you," Ron muttered. "You didn't have to go to bloody Dorset to get laid. With that...man," he settled for saying. </p><p>It was a mark of their respect for Harry that they had not called him a flaming idiot with no sense of self-preservation. Once, they might have continued to question his judgement. After all these years, the three of them had trust sacrosanct. </p><p>Harry was fortunate in his friendships, even if he had been unfortunate in all else.  </p><p>----</p><p>When he got back to Aberdeen, he went to the shops. Only four were allowed in at a time. He waited in the freezing rain. </p><p>He purchased Tunnock's tea cakes, a 24-pack crate of Guinness, a bottle of Auchentoshan, and on a whim, haggis. If he did not know Voldemort's aversion to fried fish, he might have acquired haddock. </p><p>----</p><p>The days he had in Aberdeen, alone in his flat, were spent cooped on his bed, under musty blankets, playing Animal Crossing and listening to Eminem's <em>Music to be Murdered by</em>. </p><p>When he tired, he browsed Reddit, and wound up on Wall Street Bets. The <em>autistic retards</em> on there reminded Harry of the two he knew.  He shared the link with Hermione, only for her to lament the decline and fall of value investing on their iMessage group. Dumbledore chimed in with a screenshot of his portfolio growth since the pandemic began, spurred by cryptocurrencies and cannabis stocks, further alarming Hermione. Snape sent an Android emoji, to incite a flame war.   </p><p>-----</p><p>The nights were difficult. He tossed about restless in his uncomfortable and expensive bed, staring at the ceiling, browsing on his phone distractedly, and the curtains about him shifted though there was no wind. </p><p>The second night, he woke up abruptly, to find the music playing on his tablet. Eminem. He had forgotten to pause Spotify. </p><p><em>You get in my way? I'ma feed you to the monster </em><br/>
<em>I'm normal during the day, but at night turn to a monster</em> </p><p>Swallowing, he flicked the light on, and found wisps of black smoke curling about his fingers. </p><p>
  <em>When the moon shines like Ice Road Truckers</em><br/>
<em>I look like a villain outta those blockbusters</em>
</p><p>Frightened, he fast-dialed Dumbledore.</p><p>"Harry?" </p><p>"I-" he cleared his throat, seeing the distortions of smoke on his limbs. "The Obscurus."</p><p>"I was reading Shelley, an old Christmas week tradition," Dumbledore said softly. "Will you listen?"</p><p>"Yes," Harry begged, wanting to close his eyes to stop seeing the sight of him, and afraid to close them lest he lost himself more. "Yes, please." </p><p><em>"The awful shadow of some unseen Power </em><br/>
<em>Floats though unseen among us; visiting </em><br/>
<em>This various world with as inconstant wing</em>"</p><p>Dumbledore's voice, Northstar, had been Harry's reassurance and comfort. If he was a creature of faith, his faith was Dumbledore. </p><p>
  <em>As summer winds that creep from flower to flower; </em><br/>
<em>Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, </em><br/>
<em>It visits with inconstant glance </em><br/>
<em>Each human heart and countenance</em>
</p><p>His hands stopped morphing, and wisps of smoke curled away into nothingness. His rapid and erratic heartbeat slowed.  </p><p><em>Like hues and harmonies of evening, </em><br/>
<em>Like clouds in starlight widely spread, </em><br/>
<em>Like memory of music fled, </em><br/>
<em>Like aught that for its grace may be </em><br/>
<em>Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.</em> </p><p>"What is it about?" he asked, hoarse of voice, as if he had screamed for hours.</p><p>"<em>The Spirit of Intellectual Beauty</em>," Dumbledore replied, tone unmarked by worry or fear, resolute in his supreme confidence that Harry would return to himself.</p><p>Did Dumbledore read poetry every Christmas thinking of that man he had buried in stone? </p><p>"Harry."</p><p>"Yes?" </p><p>"You must realize that this distraction cannot heal."</p><p>Harry knew that. He wanted the real deal. He wanted to be held, to be known. </p><p>"Until the pandemic's end." </p><p>Dumbledore did not pursue the subject. He spent two hours on the phone with Harry, reading Shelley to him.</p><p>------</p><p>All was quiet at Swanage. Harry could see a sliver of light under Delphini's door. </p><p>"How is she?" </p><p>"Fell asleep a quarter of the way through Boxing Day dinner. Scorpius caught her before she plunked her face into a bowl of Cullen Skink," Voldemort remarked, taking Harry's coat and jacket and umbrella for him. </p><p>"I am to take the vaccine on New Year's Eve, the day after tomorrow, before the press, to demonstrate that they are safe for the general public." </p><p>Harry quirked an eyebrow at him. Voldemort was not the general public. He was a retired and defanged revolutionary living in a cliffside house at the arse end of the Jurassic coast. </p><p>"They think that my paranoia about dying would mean that public perception towards the vaccine potion would trend positive, were I to take it."</p><p>If a man with a phobia of death took the vaccine willingly, then it must be all right for everyone else, surely. </p><p>Voldemort did not have a phobia of death. He had feared and fought fate for another's life, relentlessly and obsessively, in vain. </p><p>----</p><p>"Harry!" Delphini grinned brightly, when she woke up and trudged sleepily into the kitchen. </p><p>She was wearing a faded Judas Priest T-shirt with plain woolen pyjamas. She was the thinnest she had been, in their acquaintance of over a year. In her gauntness, Harry saw a faint resemblance to Sirius. The dark circles about her eyes were deep-sunken grooves. There were lines marring her young forehead, from the stress of a year without reprieve.  </p><p>All of that, and she was still bright-eyed and happy as she settled in at the kitchen table to chat with him. Voldemort was outside, in the gardens, saying something about needing chervil and winter savory for the stew. </p><p>Harry got up and went to make her a cup of the awful Nescafe instant she swore by. Remembering at the last minute, he went to the cupboard where her Lady Gaga mug was, and she sighed a mumbled thanks before burying her face in the coffee. </p><p>"How was your Christmas at Hogwarts?" she asked excitedly, after downing half a cup and coming to a semblance of lucidity. </p><p>"Unusual," he admitted. "There were empty chairs. There were no House Elves. The decorations were muted."</p><p>Flitwick had been Dumbledore's fellow conspirator for extravagant Christmas decorations. This year, Dumbledore had not emerged from his quarters until Christmas Day. So Minerva and Snape had taken charge of the decorations and the preparations. Neither of them had Dumbledore's or Flitwick's eye for splendor. </p><p>"Uncle Lucius and Aunt Wallis did not join us," Delphini said, sighing. "They had the baby in early December. So they thought it best to remain in Belfast. It was the first Christmas they had missed at the Manor." </p><p>Harry had often wondered why Narcissa was at the Manor and Lucius in Belfast, if they were divorced. Was it a contract clause? </p><p>"Draco brought in a real Christmas tree this year. It was eight feet high!" Delphini went on. "Papa baked gingerbread tree ornaments. Scorpius and I ate half of them before they were hung. Aunt Narcissa was dismayed by the crumbs on her precious carpets, but we managed to distract her by playing the new Foo Fighters album. She <em>loathes</em> that band, or so she says, but we caught her tapping to <em>No Son of Mine</em>."</p><p>"Mum and Dad brought in a real goose on Dad's motorbike! It was alive, Harry! Papa refused to kill it in the kitchens. Mum said it is the city in him." </p><p>Voldemort came in then, smelling of herbs, and the morning rain. </p><p>"Stop quoting Bella, Delphini," he said mildly. </p><p>"I can't, Papa. She is quotable! So, Harry, Mum had to take the goose out into the gardens and kill it there. She taught Scorpius and me to pluck the feathers. It was quite morbid. Mum likes morbid."</p><p>"They had their Christmas tea, at Narcissa's table, reeking of goose blood and decked with feathers," Voldemort muttered. "She was displeased." </p><p>"When isn't she, Papa?" Delphini said, laughing, carefree. "She should be running a tearoom to instill a sense of tradition in the youth, lest she be left the last proper lady in our country."</p><p>"I don't think that is what tearooms are for," Harry said, amused. "Hermione took Ron and me to one, in Glasgow. They serve tea, Delphini."</p><p>"I have never been to one," she said ruefully. "Draco would never take Scorpius or me to one, saying that it is a tourist trap with no culinary value."</p><p>"You earn enough at St. Mungo's to afford a tearoom visit," Voldemort murmured, chopping up cabbages and carrots and a plethora of vegetables for the stew. "Harry, are you averse to peccary?"</p><p>What was a peccary? </p><p>"Papa, stop importing game meat in the time of a pandemic," Delphini said, exasperated. "Mad cow disease! Bird flu! Swine flu! You smuggled in a virus from Wuhan. Must you carry on so?" </p><p>"Hush, child," Voldemort teased. "I did not ask you."</p><p>"It is Aunt Narcissa's fault," Delphini said glumly. "She is your enabler!"</p><p>"What is a peccary?" Harry cut in.</p><p>She sighed and opened a Wikipedia page on her phone, and sent it over WhatsApp to him. </p><p>It did not seem appetizing. </p><p>"Which part of it?" he asked, alarmed. </p><p>"Why don't the two of you leave me to my venture?" Voldemort said, waving them off. "I know what I am doing."</p><p>"Famous last words," Delphini whispered. </p><p>"Come on, I have gifts for you," Harry told her, laughing. </p><p>"I have something for you too!" she said brightly. </p><p>She squealed and came to hug Harry when she was given the crate of Guinness and the tea cakes, before the social distancing spells clanged. </p><p>"What is that?" she asked curiously, when he handed her the haggis. </p><p>"It comes from an animal, native to Scotland," he lied. "It is a small four-legged creature that is found in the highlands. The legs on one side of the creature are smaller than those on the other, which means that it can run around the side of hills easily at a level altitude: but it does mean that the haggis can easily be caught by running round the hill in the opposite direction, for the creature cannot turn round to escape. If it did so the difference in the length of its legs would cause it to lose stability and roll downhill, with fatal consequences."</p><p>She blinked at him. </p><p>"Is it a magical creature?" </p><p>"Indeed." </p><p>Keeping a straight face was nearly impossible.  </p><p>Hermione said that many Americans believed that haggis came from an animal called haggis. Some had wanted to hunt it on their trip to Scotland. Delphini seemed as informed as their cousins across the Atlantic. </p><p>"She had a D in Care of Magical Creatures," Voldemort called out from the kitchen. </p><p>"I did not find Augureys particularly interesting," she muttered. "Harry! You are lying to me." </p><p>"Sheep's pluck, minced, and cooked in a sheep's stomach," he relented. </p><p>She stared at him, aghast. </p><p>"If that is how you are talking to Papa, no wonder he took you to bed."</p><p>"Shut up," he advised, and turned to open his gift from her. </p><p>It was a stone of meteorite, and on it was inscribed an E. </p><p>"Papa took me to Delphi, to the temple of Apollo, many years ago. There was a python there, that claimed to be the descendent of the python that Apollo had slain. She led us through the ruins, to the navel of the world. There, I found this stone."</p><p>"I cannot take this," Harry said, shocked by its significance. </p><p>She nodded her head to the door. He followed her outside, and they walked in silence until they were on the coastal path. </p><p>Solemnly, windswept, she faced him, and said in earnestness, "My parents are responsible for the crimes that blighted your life, Harry."</p><p>Harry looked away, trying to calm himself. As if from far away, he saw her shiver in December's gale, and hastened to place a warming charm on her. He had made his terms with the past twenty years ago, after the Wall had been raised. Life is for living, he had resolved. Ron and Hermione had raised their children in ignorance of the war. </p><p>How had Delphini tracked down the details of their past? </p><p>"Papa told me everything," she said bleakly. "He confessed when I was a girl of eight. He came to the Cotswolds, to where I had been staying with Dad and Mum. Mum begged him not to tell me. Wait until she is older, Mum told him. Dad said it was best to get it over with. I had never seen Mum so frightened."</p><p>A young girl, raised in happiness, protected and loved. She had idolized her parents. </p><p>"I did not speak to them for five months. I stayed with Draco and Scorpius, in London. It was Draco who told me about your schooldays, about your capers and adventures, about the grief that came to you because you were the boy who lived." </p><p>Sirius had run away from his family to James. Andromeda had run away from her family to Ted. </p><p>"Dad was taken to St. Mungo's, for a heart attack. Mum was inconsolable in the days that followed. I was frightened. I had never faced the prospect of a loved one's death. I ran to Papa. He had always made things right, as seen through a child's eyes. He took me to Greece, until Dad recovered."</p><p>"<em>This is the navel of the world</em>, Papa told me, as we stood in Delphi's temple, in that place of oleander fumes and cracked stones. <em>Make a wish</em>."</p><p>"I made a wish. I made a wish that one day I would meet you, that I would make amends between your blood and mine, between your children and mine, for the sins of my father."</p><p>She nodded to the stone Harry held. </p><p>"It glowed in the dark then, a solitary rock at the navel of the world." Tearful, she smiled at Harry, and said softly, "Will you have this, as our pact of forgiveness?"</p><p>Voldemort had not apologized. Harry had not expected him to, not after he had heard about Voldemort's madness. </p><p>Bellatrix, Harry knew, believed in the righteousness of her deeds. She had gone to Azkaban proudly, without an iota of remorse. </p><p>There stood Delphini, a young girl with the world's weight on her, asking him for forgiveness on the behalf of madmen and zealots that had killed Harry's family. </p><p>He did not know how to extend his magic as a limb, as Voldemort did effortlessly, but he focused on his anguish of years, and his contentment at Swanage, and his care for the girl, and the Obscurus in him was curls of white smoke seeking her in warm embrace. </p><p>"Oh, Harry," she whispered, weeping quietly, and her shields of protection fell. Staggering at her embrace, he caught her in his arms and held her tight as she cried. </p><p>"It isn't safe," he told her, as curls of her hair shifted in a wind without cause, as his fingers began morphing on her shoulders. </p><p>"I am safe with you," she said fiercely, grasping his hands in hers. </p><p>He wept too. </p><p>The meteorite in his jacket was warm, even in cold midwinter. His magic, sentient and parasitic, was lulled into submission by his overwhelming affection for the girl he held.</p><p><em>For it is hawthorn that heals the broken hear</em>t, Firenze had said. </p><p>It was not Voldemort's heart that the centaur had spoken of. </p><p>It was Harry's.</p><p>----</p><p>When they returned to the house, the rich aroma of meat stew welcomed them. </p><p>"I approve of peccary imports," Harry endorsed, as he sat back in his chair, belly full and mellowed by cider. </p><p>"You are hopeless!" Delphini grumbled, mopping up the last of her stew with pieces of the purple tortillas Voldemort had served alongside. Her phone rang. St. Mungo's. Scowling, she waved to them, and headed outside where the reception was better. </p><p>"She gave you the stone," Voldemort said quietly, eyes fixed on Old Harry's Rocks through the bay windows. </p><p>"Yes." Harry took a deep breath and asked, "Would you happen to have twine? I mean to wear it about my neck." </p><p>Voldemort looked at him then, starkly shocked. </p><p>"I have a length of flax that should do," he said softly.</p><p>----</p><p>He slipped into bed beside Voldemort that night, at eleven, after watching <em>Stardust</em> with Delphini. </p><p>His emotions, agitated, returned in force after the distraction of the film. Voldemort's magic responded, reflexively, soothing him into calm, as it soothed a Castle into abeyance.</p><p>He ought to protest, but he felt better.</p><p>"What does the E on the stone mean?" he asked, instead. </p><p>"In the vestibule of the ancient Oracle of Delphi, there were three inscriptions. The first of these, and the most famous, was <em>Know Thyself</em>. The second, <em>Nothing in excess</em>. The third was merely the letter <em>E</em>. Historians have no consensus on its meaning, though some speculate that it means <em>Thou art</em>, while others speculate that it means <em>If</em>."</p><p>Know Thyself, Harry had heard of. When editing for Hermione and Ron, it was easy to pinpoint her lines because of how frequently she used this statement in conversations.</p><p>"I went there, first in 1949. <em>Nothing in excess</em> spoke to me then, for I ailed everyday, from breath to breath, as magic left me to sustain Abraxas."</p><p>Nothing in excess. Everything Voldemort had done to keep Abraxas alive had been in excess, ruining himself and their country.</p><p>"The second time, I went in 1971, with Narcissa. She had been struggling with her past, and with her future. <em>Know Thyself</em>, I read to her, so that she might cease destroying herself in self-doubt." </p><p>Dumbledore suspected that Voldemort's wand of yew was with Narcissa. Harry wondered what their relation could be. </p><p>"The third time, I went alone, in 1995, after news of the pregnancy was brought to me. <em>E</em> was all I saw illumined by the moon in the dark ruins. <em>I am</em>, I knew then." </p><p>In madness, even in madness, he knew himself, and did not shirk away from the ruin of him. </p><p>"I became what I knew I must be. I wept my madness away. Naked to the soul, upon the navel of the world, I accepted that her father I would be, and only that, setting aside all else. I wept until my tears were blood, until my magic poured into the ancient stones and woke the earth, until a meteorite fell through the ruined roof to where I lay prostrate. All was empty in the skies, but for Saturn, lonely, standing watch." </p><p>Saturn's children lived in-between worlds, belonging to neither one nor the other, solitary and lonely, and melancholy was Saturn's legacy to them. </p><p>"When I told Delphini of my past, she ran to Draco and refused to see me for months. Heartsick, frightened, I waited. When she returned to me, I took her to the temple of Apollo, to the place where I had shed my madness in oleander's fumes, upon cracked stones, under Saturn's bright. The stone came to Delphini."</p><p>And she had given it to Harry, this stone that had fallen from the skies upon the ancient edifice where Voldemort had surrendered madness and ambition. A pact of peace and of forgiveness. </p><p>They had not raised her to hate. </p><p>A cursed child, the press had called Harry once, for the scar on his face. </p><p>Delphini was no cursed child.</p><p>Sighing, Harry closed the distance between Voldemort and him on the bed. He knew Voldemort at least in this. So he reached out and touched the man's cheek, and smiled wanly when lips pressed against the core of his unlined palm.</p><p>"Come with me tomorrow," Voldemort asked. </p><p>It took Harry a few seconds to understand what he meant. </p><p>"To St. Mungo's? I am here illegally!"</p><p>"Griselda is quite fond of you." </p><p>Why had Griselda gone south, twenty years ago? </p><p>Dumbledore said that she had a longstanding friendship with Lucius Malfoy. Had he been the one to sway her? </p><p>Voldemort had had no part in the end of the war, most everyone concurred. He had left it to those he trusted, preoccupied as he had been with his quest to regain sanity before his daughter was born.   </p><p>"Harry?"</p><p>"The press-"</p><p>"I am quite capable of concealing you from the press." </p><p>"What will it serve?" </p><p>Voldemort tapped a finger on the stone that hung about Harry's neck. </p><p>"A vaccine, Harry. It will give you your life back."  </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you guessed the meaning of the chapter title right, I salute you.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The Minister of Loneliness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>December 31, 2020</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Ready?" Delphini asked, looking up from where she had been immersed in holograms of hospitalization charts and tables she had brought up to float over the kitchen table.  </p><p>She was in robes of tweed, and had slicked her hair back into a bun. Harry was reminded of Minerva. She was also taller.  <em>Heels!</em></p><p>"You went all out, didn't you?" he teased her. He wore the only set of formal robes he had brought along, black and plain. </p><p>"Photo-Ops, Harry!" she muttered, blushing. </p><p>There was a bronze pin pressed crooked on her lapel. Harry shook his head and went to neaten it. It was the insignia of the House of Lestrange. How many times had he seen it on that moldy tapestry in Sirius's old house? </p><p>"You shaved!" she exclaimed. </p><p>He had shaved. He had also dyed his hair finally. He might be an illegal trespasser, but he wanted to paint a good impression to the Minister. Voldemort had said that Griselda was fond of him. </p><p>He had spent the night wondering who might see him. He had confidence in Voldemort's ability to hoodwink the press, but there would be others. Periwinkle Greengrass. Nat Rosier. And others from the C.R.U.P. delegation who had worked with him.</p><p>Would there be Death Eaters present? From what he had heard, Griselda had swept the ranks of the Ministry clean of post-war nepotist appointees. </p><p>-----</p><p>Delphini and Harry snuck in through one of the janitorial entrances to St. Mungo's. </p><p>There were body bags of corpses stacked in the corridors, sealed in Bubble Charms. They had run out of morgue space in the beginning of December, at the crest of the second wave.  </p><p>Delphini continued chattering away, not batting an eyelid at the grisly sight. This scene was not new to her. Pity seized Harry at the realization of what her days and nights at the hospital for months must have constituted.</p><p>"Healer Greengrass will be the one to serve the potion to the Minister and to Papa, before the press," she said, leading him through the corridors with the certainty of one who had walked these paths thousands of times. "I will be the one serving our little band of illegals, in my office."<br/>
 <br/>
"Band?" he asked, surprised. </p><p>"Through here, Harry!" she said brightly, nipping into the anteroom of her office.</p><p>The ceiling was painted with the colors of the rainbow. </p><p>"BORN THIS WAY!" Proclaimed a bubble painted from the mouth of a pink-haired woman in leather and chains. Wizarding graffiti! The woman began twerking on the wall. Above her head, below her feet, to her sides, began flashing lyrics of <em>Poker Face</em>.  </p><p>Lady Gaga. </p><p>"Delphi!" </p><p>It was Draco, leaving her office. He was antsy when he saw her, and became downright alarmed when he caught sight of Harry. </p><p>"Draco." </p><p>"Harry." Draco cleared his throat delicately. "Delphi, Aunt Bella is here."</p><p>"Tell Mum I can protect her from Harry!"  <br/>
 <br/>
Draco exchanged a dry glance with Harry. </p><p>"She won't do anything," Delphi said cheerfully, reminding Harry of Dumbledore. "I have fireproofed my office, Draco. Nothing to worry about!"</p><p>She patted Harry's hand and strode into her office. </p><p>"We had best wait here until she vaccinates them," Draco suggested. </p><p>Harry nodded. The badge pinned to Draco's robes bore the symbols of the Ministry. He had not heard of Draco working for the government.</p><p>"A recent development," Draco said, noticing where Harry's curious gaze had wandered. "A pandemic-related assignment, as yours had been with C.R.U.P."</p><p>Harry took in the sight of him. He had last seen Draco in May, in Belfast, by Lucius's sickbed installed make-shift in a gift-shop of the Dubh Linn Wizarding Hospice. If Draco had been careworn then, how could Harry describe him now? There were streaks of white in his hair. The lines on his forehead were grooved deep. His cheeks were sunken and he had lost at least ten pounds since Harry had last seen him. </p><p>He had aged years in a span of months. While he cut a striking figure still, the toll of the pandemic was evident in every inch of him.  </p><p>"You look well," Draco offered. </p><p>Harry was troubled then, that he had taken the pains to dye his hair and shave his beard. He had had a complex relationship with food, from his years at Hogwarts. Voldemort's tendency to seek diversion in cooking did not help Harry's waistline any. </p><p>Draco must have seen his silent crisis, because he said, "You were a scrawny child during our schooldays, malnourished. I am glad that is no longer the case."</p><p>The wealth of pity and understanding in his voice Harry had heard in Ron's before. It was the kindness of a father. Children changed a man's personality, Hermione was fond of preaching.  </p><p>Speaking of Hermione.</p><p>"Hermione said she has been in touch with you," he mentioned.</p><p>"Yes. Mrs. Weasley found me on Facebook," Draco said brightly, relieved that Harry had finally attempted conversation on an innocuous subject that did not touch the old wounds and scars of them. "She wanted to understand the merits of Swanage."</p><p>"As far as Bed and Breakfasts go, it is not a poor one," Harry said dryly. </p><p>Draco laughed at his joke, and the openness of his mirth Harry had not once seen in him during their schooldays. </p><p>There was no war left in any of them.   </p><p>"Draco! Harry!" Delphini called from her office. </p><p>Harry took a deep breath to ground himself for who he would see. An expression of sympathy crossed Draco's features.  </p><p>"Voldemort has spoken highly of you," Draco told him. "Aunt Bella shan't start anything."</p><p>Voldemort had spoken highly of Harry. What had he said? His reserved nature did not lend itself to effusive speech. His magic spoke for him more than his words did. </p><p>In Delphini's office, spic-and-span, sterilized to high-heaven and reeking of chlorine, the furniture resembled that of Harry's Aberdeen flat. Perhaps she had ordered from the same catalogue he had. All was white, with streamlined nouveau sharp edges. There were a few potted plastic plants, strategically placed to conceal power outlets.  <br/>
 <br/>
Splashed upon the uncomfortable sofa with sharp edges and white upholstery was Bellatrix, eyes glued to the high-definition LCD television mounted slick to the wall. In her customary corseted get-up, with plenty of purple lace and frills to go around, she was voluptuous and dainty, a Renaissance's muse.   </p><p>"Potter," she said courteously, nodding to him. </p><p>"Mrs. Lestrange." </p><p>Harry had not expected her to stick to a facade of politeness. He had underestimated Delphini's ability to make her Mum toe the line. If Bellatrix meant to behave, then so would he. </p><p>She had no bubblehead charm or social distancing spell covering her. The sight startled him. He had become used to the coverings and trappings they had undertaken for months in a bid to hold the virus at bay. </p><p>After this potion, he would not need to be covered head to toe in spells to isolate himself from humanity. </p><p>"The vaccination broadcast starts in twenty minutes," Delphini explained, waving at the telly. "Draco, here is your vial. Harry, I must make sure that this shall work with your magic. The tricky part of the vaccine potion is that the base potion, which is mass produced, can react in many negative ways with a recipient's magic. I shall have to run some diagnostics to understand the <em>tweaks</em> to be made." </p><p>Draco raised his vial in salute and downed it. He did not sprout feathers or fall dead on the spot. </p><p>"It has passed three clinical trials," Delphini grumbled, seeing Harry's surprise. "And my mum is still alive," she added, dropping a shoddy curtsey to Bellatrix. As regal as any queen, Bellatrix scoffed. The fondness in her bright eyes as she looked at her daughter was undeniable. </p><p>There was no war left even in Bellatrix. </p><p>Harry stood still, as Delphini cast arcs of colorful spells on him, muttering to herself and making notes with a Quick Quill. Each spell took him closer to the end of the pandemic, to the end of his forced isolation. His hands were clammy. </p><p>"All right," she chirped, and turned to tweak the base potion. "Your composition is quite unique. I see that commonly in children of powerful wizards, particularly if one of the parents had been a Muggle Born. It is fascinating!"</p><p>"Delphi," Draco cut in. </p><p>She fell silent, eyes wide in horror as she realized what she had raked up.</p><p>"Oh, Harry! I am so sorry!" she babbled, anguished. Her hand did not slip from its task of stirring the little cauldron. The mark of a healer, multi-tasking and compartmentalizing even amidst complex situations of life and death.  </p><p>"It is fine," Harry said, composing himself, unwilling to show an ounce of emotion before Bellatrix. "Why don't you tell us about the most complicated case you had to tweak the potion for?" </p><p>"Papa's," she said eagerly, seizing the chance to divert the subject. "His immune system is complicated, though he loathes it when I tell him so. It must be because of how frequently he has explored along the boundaries of science and magic."</p><p>Was Dumbledore's complicated too? </p><p>She brought the vial to him. As he made to drink it down, a whiplash hex struck his wrist, and the vial fell to the floor, shattering. Draco threw a hasty shielding charm, to spare them the shards of glass. Harry's disarming spell tore through the white upholstery of the sofa Bellatrix had been draped on. She had ducked behind the furniture, nimble as a mountain goat.  </p><p>"Mum!"</p><p>"Aunt Bella!" </p><p>"There is an Obscurus in him," Bellatrix said, eyes half-shut, contemplative, without a spark of emotion. "You could have triggered a self-destructive reaction, Delphi."</p><p>"An Obscurus?" Draco asked, spluttering. "Aunt Bella, Harry is hardly-"</p><p>"Harry's Obscurus is harmless, Mum! It doesn't-" </p><p>Harry sat down on the nearest chair, trying to control his breathing, as he knew that blinding sense of disorientation. </p><p>"Harry, Harry, listen to me!" Delphini was saying. "Don't give in, please!" She was knelt before him, patting his cheeks sharply in a bid to draw his attention. </p><p>Draco and Bellatrix were arguing. </p><p>Delphini swung her arms about his neck, and kissed his cheek, whispering inanities to soothe and calm.  </p><p>The stone Harry wore about his neck warmed to her pleas, even as his fingers turned to smoke, and he was on ancient stones, cracked and ruined, and there were tears of blood washing his feet. High above him was Saturn, watchful. A pact of peace, of surrender, of forgiveness.   </p><p>"You are safe," Delphini spoke, and he opened his eyes. </p><p>Draco swore. Delphini turned pale in fear, but she clung to Harry. </p><p>"His eyes-"</p><p>"Hush!" Bellatrix told them briskly. "It is common for an Obscurial. Delphi, step back." </p><p>"Papa said-" </p><p>"Your father knows nothing about Obscurials," Bellatrix muttered. "He did not grow up in an old Wizarding family." </p><p>Their squabbling rooted Harry in himself once more, and he saw that his fingers were human. What had happened to his eyes? Draco's wand and Bellatrix's were fixed on him, but they had trusted Delphini's ability to talk him out of it. </p><p>"I am all right now," he said. </p><p>"I think I know what changes to make," Delphini said quietly, raking her hand through his hair once. The gesture comforted. </p><p>All was quiet, as she stirred up the changes to the potion. Draco was staring at him, shocked by this new knowledge. Bellatrix had returned her attention to the telly once more. </p><p>"You are the most complicated recipient I have dealt with," Delphini said, finally proffering Harry a new vial. </p><p>He drank it down. It was a curious sensation of blinding pain followed by bliss, in quick succession, before washing down to normalcy. </p><p>"Draco had this creative idea," Delphini elucidated, seeing Harry's curiosity. "Papa pushes happiness into others occasionally, on reflex. We took inspiration from that to temper the effects of the original Cruciatus based potion. Shall I do the honors, Harry?" </p><p>"Honors?"</p><p>She laughed, and cancelled his bubblehead charms and social distancing spells, brimming with confidence. </p><p>The world tilted, and Harry felt oddly naked without the charms. Would the Muggles feel similarly peculiar when the mask mandates were lifted? </p><p>Draco offered his hand. In an eerie mirror of an old exchange, Harry took his hand and shook it warmly, the first handshake in more than ten months. </p><p>"Welcome to the aftertimes," Bellatrix announced. </p><p>"Mum, stop quoting memes!" </p><p>"Hush, you two! The programme!" Draco said, increasing the volume on the telly. </p><p>Griselda and Voldemort were chatting with the press. Griselda, taciturn and clipped in her answers, and Voldemort, interacting with them with his calculated charisma of old. It was a stark contrast to how Voldemort was in Harry's presence, without act and affectation.  </p><p>Griselda was in bright red, with the Ministry badge emblazoned on her lapel. Voldemort had worn green. </p><p>Periwinkle gave them their vials. Before a hundred flashing bulbs, and hordes of journalists, they drank the potion, and continued conversing and taking questions from the press, emphasizing how there were no adverse reactions. Then, they dropped their bubblehead charms and social distancing spells, together, and embraced each other. </p><p>"This is the first time I have embraced him," Griselda quipped. "This pandemic, ladies and gentlemen, has turned me desperate."</p><p>The press tittered. Voldemort took the jibe in good grace and bent to kiss her wrinkled cheek. </p><p>"Come to the afterparty!" Delphini insisted, herding them to the anteroom, where her Lady Gaga graffiti art was twerking to <em>Just Dance</em>.  There was a bowl of punch and a few platters of dim-sum. </p><p>Did punch go with dim-sum? </p><p>"Your obsession with this woman is Oedipal," Bellatrix judged. </p><p>"Mum! Lady Gaga is cooler than you are! You can't twerk." </p><p>"It does not seem hard," Bellatrix muttered, eyeing the moves in keen speculation. </p><p>"Stop challenging Aunt Bella," Draco cut in hastily. </p><p>The door opened, and Griselda strode in, followed by Periwinkle and Nat Rosier. </p><p>"Mr. Potter," Griselda said warmly, coming to shake hands with him. "I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you again." </p><p>"Illegally," Periwinkle said, frowning. </p><p>"Illegally," Griselda agreed, good humor not diminished a whit. "Albus and Voldemort have been tampering with the border controls willy-nilly for years. If I did not know any better, I would suspect them lovers trysting." </p><p>"You ship them," Nat Rosier pointed out, shaking his head in exasperation. "Harry!" He grinned and came to pump Harry's hand in an excited handshake, artless and happy. </p><p>Even Periwinkle, ever staid and stern, was smiling. </p><p>Without bubblehead charms, without six feet of distancing, gathering in Delphini's cramped anteroom, the magnitude of this turning point in the pandemic left Harry weak-kneed. </p><p>"Punch?" Draco offered, holding out a glass.</p><p>"Thank you," he managed to reply, and clinked his glass to Draco's. As if seeing his disorientation, Draco nodded to the office. They left the others and closed the door behind them. </p><p>Delphini's angular, nouveau furniture was uncomfortable, but Harry found a measure of peace as he sat down six feet away from Draco. He itched to place back the bubblehead charms. </p><p>"Your father?"</p><p>"Ireland's vaccinations should begin in two months," Draco answered. </p><p>"No illegal trespassing, then?" </p><p>"You occupy the pride of place as the only human Voldemort has trafficked."</p><p>The good humor in Draco's retort was unmistakable. Threaded in his voice was stark the disbelief that the pandemic was nearing its end.</p><p>"What is your Ministry assignment?" Harry asked curiously. </p><p>"The Minister of Loneliness," Draco replied, solemn. </p><p>Startled, Harry turned to him. </p><p>"There has been a mental health pandemic, due to the social isolation, that has affected multitudes of young adults, and single men and women of all ages," Draco said. "We have had a long history of senior citizens living alone and struggling with their mental health due to the lack of social interactions. The pandemic exacerbated their situations too." </p><p>Harry was not alone. </p><p>He had been fortunate at least in his friendships. There must be many who had not had even that. </p><p>He had been fortunate to decamp to Swanage, where he had found a measure of contentment in the solitude of two he had established with Voldemort. The last time he had been in Aberdeen, the walls of his flat had closed in on him. How many had struggled for months, and would continue to struggle for months, as they lived in cramped flats, away from their families or friends?  </p><p>He was fortunate in the state of his finances. Rose and Hugo, and their generation, were worried sick about employment prospects. Ron and Hermione had done well for themselves, but they feared having to support adult children for years to come.</p><p>"I was a lonely child," Draco said, unbidden, staring pensively at his hands. "Mum lives alone in the Manor. She has lived alone there, for nearly four decades. I gave up my flat in Shoreditch and moved back with her, at the beginning of the pandemic. The change has been remarkable, for both of us, and it is one neither of us are keen to end."</p><p>There was no wedding ring on Draco's left hand. </p><p>"I suspect my return to Aberdeen shan't be easy," Harry confessed, drawn to sincerity by Draco's forthcomingness. </p><p>"An Obscurial," Draco broached hesitantly. "There has not been one in years." </p><p>"Were they common before?"</p><p>"In older Wizarding families. Cruel men getting their House Elves with child. That sort of affair. I have never heard of an adult turn an Obscurial. Aunt Bella says that there were a few, in Azkaban, condemned there for endangering society by the mere fact of their existence." </p><p>What were the laws in the Northern territories? It did not matter. Dumbledore would protect Harry.</p><p>"There is little recorded information on Obscurials in modern history. The older families feared to document or report the instances in their household, unwilling to risk repercussions to their social standing or bring about a Ministry investigation into the abusive environments that caused the inception of an Obscurial." </p><p>"Neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore was worried," Harry remarked. </p><p>"Voldemort is driven by curiosity," Draco said mildly. </p><p>A clever fool, Dumbledore had called Voldemort. Curiosity was a trait Voldemort had in common with Harry. Their sense flew out the window when it came to what stirred their curiosity.</p><p>The door opened with a clatter. Delphini dragged in a young man. </p><p>"Scorpius, Harry." </p><p>The young man blushed and looked at him as Colin Creevey had once, in ardent hero-worship. </p><p>"Couldyousignmyfireboltpleasepleaseplease?"</p><p>"Harry doesn't speak Gobbledygook, Scorpius," Delphini teased wickedly. </p><p>The boy blushed further and scowled at her.</p><p>"I will be happy to sign it for you, Scorpius," Harry cut in, taking pity. Hadn't he once worshipped Oliver Wood so?</p><p>Draco's child, drinking in the sight of him with stars in his eyes, besotted in hero-worship. These were not children raised to hate.</p><p>He was old. </p><p>"Come out, Draco, Harry, we are starting the dances!" Nat Rosier demanded, peeking his head about the door. </p><p>Dances?<br/>
 <br/>
<em>We are the crowd</em><br/>
<em>We're coming out</em><br/>
<em>Got my flash on, it's true</em><br/>
<em>Need that picture of you</em></p><p>Lady Gaga. <em>Paparazzi</em>.</p><p>"I ought to save everyone from Delphi's questionable tastes in music," Draco muttered, taking his phone and starting to play Judas Priest's <em>Breaking the law</em>. </p><p>"Who is your favorite musician, Harry?" Scorpius stammered, red as an apple, struggling to make eye contact. </p><p>"I like The Who," Harry replied. </p><p>"The Who!" Draco crowed. "Now that is the tops! Delphi, Scorpius, come along, let us play <em>Baba O'riley</em>."  </p><p>"Papa does not like that song!" Delphini complained, though she tagged along.  </p><p>"Your father thinks music ended after R&amp;B," Draco said dismissively, shepherding them to the anteroom once more.</p><p>There were disco lights rigged up on the ceiling. </p><p>Narcissa stepped into the room then, accompanying Voldemort, dressed in white woolen robes. </p><p>Harry wondered once more about the nature of their relationship, watching her lean easily into Voldemort's side, laughing at something he said. He kissed her cheek and left her, making a beeline to where Delphini stood squabbling with Harry about how The Who did not compare to Pink Floyd.</p><p>"It is really about the vision! Pink Floyd were visionaries!"</p><p>"They were drugged up to their gills, you mean." </p><p>"They were all druggies, Harry. Do you think The Who wrote <em>The Pinball Wizard</em> without bags of coke?" she insisted, scowling. Harry suppressed a grin at how wide-eyed she went when Voldemort scooped her into an embrace. </p><p>"Papa!" </p><p>Tear-streaked, she burrowed her head against Voldemort's chest, clinging to him. It must be their first embrace in months. </p><p><em>She comes in colours everywhere</em><br/>
<em>She combs her hair, She's like a rainbow</em><br/>
<em>Coming, colours in the air, Oh, everywhere</em> </p><p>In the flashing disco strobe lights, reflecting wild against the graffitied walls, Delphini laughed and dragged her father to the middle of the small room, into a poorly orchestrated dance to the Rolling Stones song. <br/>
 <br/>
Harry stood beside a Minister of Loneliness, wallflowers both, and watched them dance. </p><p>"Mr. Potter."</p><p>He turned to see Narcissa watching him.</p><p>"Mrs. Malfoy." </p><p>"Narcissa," she offered, with a sphinx smile that was eerie in the dancing lights against the refrains of <em>She is a Rainbow</em>. </p><p>"Harry," he returned the courtesy. </p><p>"Griselda wished to speak with you, Draco." </p><p>Draco patted his mother on the wrist, as if he could not help simple acts of tactility after the long isolation of months. Her smile warmed at the gesture and she nodded to him. </p><p>"See you, Harry." </p><p>Harry shook hands with him in parting.  </p><p>"Do you mean to return to Scotland, now that you are vaccinated?"  Narcissa asked, without ado. </p><p>His arrangement with Voldemort had been until pandemic's end. They were both vaccinated. Harry was free to return to his search for the One. He did not know Narcissa well enough to state any of that. </p><p>He had told only Snape and Dumbledore about the terms, as they were inured to scandal.</p><p>"I am aware of your arrangement."</p><p>Voldemort was not given to gossip. He must trust Narcissa deeply, to have confided in her. The rapport was not rooted in romance, Harry was sure. Voldemort had spoken little of his preferences, but Harry had caught him take notice only of the men on the television. Yet, the casual intimacy he displayed with Narcissa, Harry had not observed even in his interactions with Delphini.   </p><p>Across the room, Delphini was dancing with Rodolphus, laughing and singing along. Voldemort had been pulled into a dance with Bellatrix. While their mannerisms betrayed familiarity in each other's company, it was the familiarity of camaraderie, not the intimacy Harry had observed in Voldemort's dealings with Narcissa.  </p><p>Narcissa had his wand, Dumbledore had speculated.</p><p>"Obscurials are powerful and unpredictable," she continued quietly, eyeing him in wariness. "An Obscurus, even of the weakest of wizards, can level city blocks and cause carnage in a periphery of miles." </p><p>And he was Harry Potter, the most powerful wizard of his generation, once marked a Dark Lord's equal.  </p><p>Delphini's embrace had quelled the Obscurus, twice. It could be held under rein, Dumbledore had said confidently. Harry had listened to him recite Shelley, and the Obscurus had lost its grip over him. </p><p>Narcissa's words reflected Snape's, in emphasizing the inevitable conclusion fated for an Obscurial. However, Snape had expressed cautious hope, stating that finding the One would undo the hold of the Obscurus permanently. </p><p>"Dumbledore and Voldemort are accustomed to the turbulence of the Castle's sentient magic. It is understandable that they paint your situation in the same colors."</p><p>They had a blindspot, she implied. They thought Harry's situation manageable as they equated it to the Castle's sentience. </p><p>Harry's magic reacted to her words, lashing towards her as a whip, and floundering away when it hit a familiar sweep of evergreen. </p><p>Narcissa shook her head, in sorrow's deep knowing.</p><p>"How can his magic be yours?" he asked, surprised. </p><p>She offered him her right hand, palm-up. Curiosity compelled him, and he placed his own atop hers. </p><p>In the wild flash of the strobe lights, Voldemort's magic of yew's evergreen was dappled white by a bloom that Harry knew well. </p><p>Hawthorn. </p><p>
  <em>For it is hawthorn that heals the broken heart.</em>
</p><p>Narcissa was as magical as a Squib. And yet, what remnants of magic were left in her blossomed bright and fierce on the velveteen sweep of Voldemort's magic. </p><p>"<em>Storge</em>, Harry, is the love of a man for his family." </p><p><em>Storge</em>.</p><p>The stone about Harry's neck was warm. The Obscurus had retreated after Delphini's pleas, after Dumbledore's steady recital. </p><p>Family. </p><p>Voldemort's magic drew Narcissa's out, what minute specks were left, and their mutual trust was incandescent.  </p><p>Harry understood the stakes then. </p><p>She had given up her magic to heal Voldemort. She was Abraxas's heir. She was Voldemort's sanctuary as he had been once. She meant to protect Voldemort from the Obscurus.     </p><p>"Narcissa, Harry." </p><p>Voldemort came to stand beside him. Was it a premeditated decision? If it were, what did it mean, that he had chosen to stand beside Harry instead of at Narcissa's side? </p><p>Narcissa's smile was circumspect. The sharpness of her gaze mellowed when she beheld Voldemort. She gently untangled her hand from Harry's clasp and murmured a soft goodbye to him. </p><p>"I shall see you at the manor," she told Voldemort, rising to her toes to kiss his cheek in parting. </p><p>"I must leave," Harry said quietly in her wake. </p><p>"Happy New Year! Happy 2021!" Scorpius was shouting, as Nat and he shot sparkling ribbons into the air over the gathering. </p><p>"Stay the night." </p><p>Stay the night. </p><p>A night more, and then Harry would return to Scotland, to begin his search for the One. </p><p>----- </p><p>"You forgot to lock the door again," Harry muttered. </p><p>Voldemort hummed, distracted, watching a barn owl streak across the moon's bright face. The sea frothed, dappled by the silver of moonshine. Old Harry Rocks stood watch, steady in the tide and the howling wind. </p><p>Harry closed the door behind them, moving to kiss Voldemort. They had, the two of them, broken the restrictions of the pandemic many times over, but it was a new world, in a new year, and all he tasted in their kiss was freedom's sweet. </p><p>"Wait, wait," Voldemort said, trying to break from Harry's hold. "Let us get inside my bedroom, Harry!" he managed to say in between Harry's kisses.   </p><p>One night more. </p><p>Harry tugged him along to the kitchen, where the bay windows overlooked the cliffs and the sea. The moon gleamed large and bright at them. </p><p>"I am not taking you on my kitchen table!" Voldemort exclaimed, horrified, laughing, before gasping in shock when Harry pushed him against the table, and kicked apart his legs.</p><p>"Harry!"   </p><p>"Is that a yes or a no?" Harry asked, laughing, surprised at his own bravado. </p><p>"We eat here!"</p><p>"You will have to mop it clean afterwards," Harry suggested, feeling bold and desirable and powerful. </p><p>Voldemort shook his head, speechless, and reeled him in for a kiss. Perhaps Harry had earned the none too gentle nips along his mouth. He had surprised the man with his maneuver. </p><p>In for a penny, in for a pound. He fell to his knees and mouthed along the seams of Voldemort's robes. </p><p>"Let me at least take these off!" </p><p>"No, no, I mean to fuck you in them." </p><p>Voldemort's hands clenched tight on Harry's shoulders and when Harry looked up, all he saw was want.  </p><p>"Shall I turn about?" Voldemort offered. </p><p>"I want you to watch me take you apart," Harry replied sweetly, cherishing the stark surprise and desire painted naked across Voldemort's features. </p><p>Emboldened, he roughly grabbed the skirts of Voldemort's robes and under-robes, and tugged them up to his waist, leaving him bare below the navel. </p><p>"Hold them up." </p><p>Harry had edited countless sex scenes for Hermione and Ron's fan-fiction. The kinkiest of kinks, bizarre and inexplicable, he knew about. He had pulled off strangers in pubs and alleys. He had had blowjobs at street-corners outside clubs.</p><p>Nothing had prepared him for the sight of Voldemort splayed open before him, eyes wide and wanton as he clung to Harry with fistfuls of robes clenched tight, his lower body left bare to Harry's roving gaze and hands. </p><p>Nothing had prepared Harry for the tension of Voldemort's body against and about and under his own. </p><p>Their jerky movements threatened to topple them off the kitchen table, ending the enterprise in farce. Voldemort's magic steadied the table, reflexively, before Harry could scramble to find his wand to cast a spell. </p><p>"Well done," Harry told him, earning choked laughter. The mirth in Voldemort's gaze was outdone by lust. Harry clutched him fierce and returned to fucking him. </p><p>Moonlight pooled into the crooks and hollows of Voldemort's body, etching him in shadow and gleam. There were tears gathered in his eyes, clinging to his eyelashes. </p><p>"All right?" Harry asked him, pausing to catch his breath in between thrusts. "Should I slow down?" </p><p>The lapels of Voldemort's robes had embroidery on them. Sprigs of delphinium and hawthorn, in muted gold, entwined with leaves of the ash tree. </p><p>"Finish what you bloody started," Voldemort ordered, shifting about him restlessly, in frantic frustration. "Stopping midway is poor form." </p><p>"As judged by the Board of Sexual Finesse? A pity then that I am not seeking their endorsement," Harry teased. Oh, he liked this! He had Voldemort trapped under him, ploughed open by him, left with no choice but to take what was given. </p><p>"Let me feel your magic," he continued, brash and bold, suckling the embarrassment from Voldemort's mouth. </p><p>"It is inadvisable-" </p><p>"Oh, you want it too," Harry said dryly, knowing well how Voldemort's curiosity outstripped his own. "Go on."</p><p>The sprawl of want and mortification on Voldemort's magic was holly's red. Features wiped clean of premeditation, he swallowed and removed his hands from Harry's shoulders, leaving them lax by his head, palms splayed, stripping himself of the last iota of control he had had. The sentient magic in Harry woke, desiring to seize and hold captive. </p><p>Clad raw in moonlight and magic, Voldemort surrendered. </p><p>Eagerly, desiring, Harry accepted the offering, gladly leaving him marked and kissed and fucked into pleasure-addled satiety.  </p><p>In this paean they sung together, Harry learned then what loneliness was not. <br/>
 <br/>
----</p><p>"Must we move?" </p><p>Harry tutted and got them both vertical. His knees complained. He did not dare imagine how Voldemort's back must ache. On Voldemort's chest was a bruise blooming. The stone Harry wore about his neck had struck his skin repeatedly during their encounter. </p><p>"The floor is promising," Voldemort muttered. </p><p>"Hush." </p><p>Voldemort sighed and let Harry drag him to the bedroom, limbless and pooling into Harry's arms in sleepy postcoital languor. </p><p>Fucking induced happiness because of endorphins, Hermione said. Fucking brought about a good night's sleep, Ron held.  <em>Fucked stupid</em>, had been the wise words of Snape the Pithy. </p><p>Harry knew only that it had meant a cessation of loneliness.</p><p>Overwhelming gratitude burgeoned in him as Voldemort tossed a careless arm about his waist. </p><p>"Thank you." </p><p>Voldemort made a querying noise, halfway to sleep. </p><p><em>For letting me</em>, Harry wanted to say, but he had the good sense to refrain.  </p><p>Instead, he settled to trace the moonbeams that washed the places where he had left the marks of teeth and thumb and stone. </p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Morning was grey and grave in Swanage. The skies brimmed with storm-clouds and a bitter gale blew north. </p><p>"You slept through the storm," Voldemort murmured, leaning against the door-jamb, watching him wake. </p><p>How long had he been standing there? He was dressed in flannel, and smelled of soap and tea. </p><p>"You are up early."   </p><p>"The storm woke me."</p><p>-----</p><p>There was breakfast laid out on the kitchen table. </p><p>A fry-up. </p><p>Many months ago, Voldemort had fried up eggs and bangers for Harry at three in the morning. </p><p>"To your search for the One," he offered, clinking his teacup to Harry's. </p><p>"Happy New Year." </p><p>"Happy New Year, Harry." </p><p>------</p><p>"What are you doing here?" Snape demanded, when he found Harry in the Great Hall. "Why are you sitting at the Hufflepuff table?" </p><p>"There are no students. Does it matter where I sit?" </p><p>"Up to Albus's office you go," Snape muttered. </p><p>"Is that Harry, Severus?" Minerva bustled over, concerned. "Harry! Your spells." </p><p>"They gave me the vaccine potion yesterday." </p><p>"We have not started distribution-" </p><p>"He must have received it at St. Mungo's," Minerva cut off Snape. "Harry, come along. Let us find Albus."</p><p>They marched up the circular stairs, to Dumbledore's office. Jazz was playing on the gramophone, tinged by the soulful sadness of the old that made way for the new. </p><p>
  <em>Expect to see me now anytime</em><br/>
<em>When I'm in your arms, I'm alright</em><br/>
<em>When you are in my arms, I'll be fine</em><br/>
<em>I'm coming home.</em>
</p><p>Herbie Mann. <em>Coming Home, Baby</em>. Harry knew his jazz thanks to Dumbledore's Spotify playlist. </p><p>"Harry," Dumbledore greeted him. "Happy New Year."</p><p>Minerva and Dumbledore wore bubblehead charms and spells of social distancing. Harry stood alone, oddly naked without those charms of isolation. </p><p>Mere hours ago, he had sung a paean with another, taking and taking until all he knew was the togetherness of two. </p><p>There was bumbling clatter upon the stairs then. They heard Snape's terse voice followed by Percy's diplomatic tones. Hastily, Harry threw on his bubblehead charms lest the Ministry ask troublesome questions. </p><p>Percy barged in. </p><p>Fudge no longer left Glasgow after he had lost his magic to the virus. Even his election campaign was being run through the means of social media, the newspapers, and the radio.  </p><p>"The Ministry is concerned about the barrage of young adult suicides that have spiked during the holiday season," Percy announced. </p><p>"To assuage the Wizarding citizenry that we understand their plight and that we are making active efforts to curb the spread of the mental health pandemic following hot on the heels of the Silent Killer unleashed upon our unsuspecting people from the other side of the Wall, we have decided to appoint a Minister of Loneliness." </p><p>"A Minister of Loneliness?" Dumbledore asked, baffled. </p><p>"The Muggles have one. They have had once since 2018," Percy stated. "So we shall have one too." </p><p>He turned to Harry and sketched a bow.  </p><p>"Harry Potter, as the face of the millennial generation, you have been solemnly called to duty to serve as the Minister of Loneliness to our people." </p><p>Harry was single, without children or family. He was the epitome of loneliness to their people. </p><p>"No." </p><p>"Harry, this is for the people," Percy began. </p><p>"No, Percy." </p><p>He had given enough. He had taken the vaccine. He wanted to make for Jamaica, to find his one. He meant to buy a cottage by the beach. He meant to-</p><p>"Twelve young men and women committed suicide yesterday, Harry," Percy said sternly. "Loneliness. Isolation. A lack of community, friendships, and family. Living in cramped quarters in the cities. They need to know that they are not alone."  </p><p>Harry was alone. </p><p>These young men and women were alone. </p><p>"Only for a few weeks, until the vaccine potions have been distributed. Then the restrictions will be repealed. We can all go back to normal after that. Merely a matter of weeks, Harry. <em>They</em> need you."  </p><p> </p><p>-----</p><p> </p><p>It was the first of January, in the new year of 2021.</p><p>Harry returned to Aberdeen, alone, as the Minister of Loneliness. </p><p> </p><p>-----</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Fasten your seatbelts. Now that we have a plot (or a semblance of it), let us move to the action. The next five chapters are our last five chapters of Pandemic. We will build them on the stage we have set up, interweave a jot here and there, and have our finale served with a side of hot sauce.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Still Alive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, named a chapter for GLaDOS's <i>Still Alive</i> from the Portal game.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>January 2021</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>He did not know why he was drawn to centaurs, to their brawny haunches, to their glossy lips, to their wise and mischievous eyes of sea-foam blue.  </p>
</blockquote><p>"I think it is quite clear why he is drawn to centaurs," Harry said wryly, as he got into the Suggesting mode on Google Docs and began leaving editorial feedback on the story. </p><p>They were collaborating on Google Drive. Harry was slowly nitpicking his way through Ron's and Hermione's latest bad ideas about how gay sex worked. </p><p>There were four lines describing the sea-foam blue eyes. </p><p>"Harry, this is the main character slowly coming to terms with the fact that he is a centaur-fucker. We can't rush it!" </p><p>Hermione and Ron wrote gay fan-fiction in a way that baffled gay men. </p><p>"The demographic composition of writers and readers of gay fan-fiction is overwhelmingly female," she had informed Harry, many a time. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>He squeaked when the centaur shoved him to the forest's eider-down of autumn leaves. </p>
</blockquote><p>"Eider-down of autumn leaves?" Harry wondered. </p><p>Hermione's scowl he could sense even through the headphones he wore. Silence being the better part of valor, he canned his thoughts and moved on. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>"I have seen you watching me," the centaur said, smirking. </p>
  <p>He blushed and cast his eyes down but a muffled whine escaped him.  </p>
  <p>"You are cute."</p>
  <p>"Don't call me cute!" he said sassily. </p>
  <p>The mysterious sea-foam eyes caught him captive. He fell quiet under their spell. </p>
</blockquote><p>"Hermione?" </p><p>"Yes, Harry?" </p><p>"This isn't how it works." </p><p>"Nobody cares," she retorted. </p><p>Sighing, he scrolled down to the ghastly descriptions of centaur-cock. This was  more palatable. He had no idea how centaurs fucked. So he could take as holy gospel whatever drivel Ron and Hermione cooked up. </p><p>Drivel was a harsh judgement, he knew. Their sales numbers, the retweets on their excerpts, and the barrage of fan-mail they received meant that they had a better pulse on what the populace wished to read than Harry did.  </p><p>For a second, he wondered how Voldemort would react if Harry shared an excerpt from their website. </p><p>He shook his head wryly. Onwards. Ever onwards. He had begun stirring the wishing cauldron again. He had begun swiping on Grindr again. The dating agencies and apps recommended that they wait to meet up until they were vaccinated. </p><p>He had begun to date Healers from the Wizarding world and front-line workers from the Muggle world, as they had started receiving their vaccines. They walked Fittie's coastal trails, in the freezing cold of January, kitted up and shouting to each other over the winds. They met up in the Botanical gardens, and tried to make awkward conversations about the pandemic and the weather.  </p><p>Each time he ventured on a date, the group message they had on WhatsApp would be full of prurient and well-meaning queries from the gossips he called friends. Hermione would insist that he upload a selfie of himself so that she could critique his date-wear. Ron would remind him to brush his teeth. Snape and Minerva would place bets on how long the date would last before it began to rain. It rained in Aberdeen a great deal that winter. </p><p>Dumbledore had been oddly silent. It was unlike him to miss a chance at gently teasing Harry for his poor game when it came to dating.  </p><p>Sometimes, when Harry walked back to his flat alone after a date that went nowhere, his fingers would turn to smoke in the rain. He would hastily get off the street, standing propped against a lamppost in the rain, and clutch in his gloved hands the stone about his neck, remembering Delphini by the seaside unafraid of him, remembering Dumbledore reciting Shelley. Delphini and Dumbledore were confident that the Obscurus would not have free rein over Harry. In their faith, he found solace.  </p><p><em>Not this one</em>, he would write on their WhatsApp group, when he made it to his door. </p><p>"Do you have a date tonight?" Hermione's voice over the speakers startled him from his thoughts.</p><p>"Only with Uber Eats," he muttered, and returned to editing centaur-porn once more. </p><p>He had ordered from every restaurant in Aberdeen over the past few days, and had found not one to his liking. </p><p>--------</p><p>"Hello there," Harry chirped, as he stood on the icy street. He waved to the witch who peeked at him through the window. "I came to see if you were well, Miss Turnbanks." </p><p>Thirty-four. Divorced. No children. Living alone. No pets. Working from home for the Department of Fisheries. </p><p>She stared at him, before babbling about this and that, grateful and excited to have someone show up at her door in the flesh. Social etiquette had fled out the window, for many of them, isolated and stripped of frills and fripperies that dominated polite conversation. Most men and women Harry paid visits to would ramble on, as if words burst from them despite themselves, after a silence of months. </p><p>Even his strongest warming charms did not keep the wind chill away. He dug his gloved hands into the pockets of his winter coat and listened to her carry on about how she was trying to learn to play the guitar from Youtube. </p><p>"Would you like to play for me?" he asked politely. </p><p>"I couldn't!" </p><p>"Miss Turnbanks, I should very much like to hear you play." </p><p>She scrambled away from the window. Harry took the chance to cast a few more warming spells on himself. Then she came back, with a brand new guitar that looked cheap, and began strumming.  </p><p>"<em>Achy, Breaky Heart</em>," Harry remarked, recognizing the chords she played poorly. </p><p>"Yes!" she exclaimed, pleased. </p><p>So Harry stood there on an empty street, listening to a woman alone playing Billy Ray Cyrus. She began singing, out of tune, and Harry joined her. </p><p>
  <em>But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart</em><br/>
<em>I just don't think he'd understand</em>
</p><p>"Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Potter," she said, as he made to Apparate away. </p><p>He scrounged up a toothy grin for her. <br/>
 <br/>
-----</p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>Delphini beamed at him from the St. Mungo's janitorial closet she appropriated for their Zoom calls. </p><p>"Miss Lestrange," he greeted her, laughing at the face she made. </p><p>She raised her Lady Gaga mug to him in toast and slurped down coffee as a vampire suckling at a victim's throat. </p><p>"It is one past midnight," he chided her. </p><p>"And my shift is beginning!" she said brightly, keyed up on caffeine and Red Bull. "You sound like Papa."</p><p>Each time she had called, Harry had carefully skirted asking about her father, though he was curious. Onwards. Ever onwards, he had told himself.   </p><p>"How did your visits today fare?" she enquired. </p><p>A man living alone. Thirty-six. Had a crippled Rottweiler. He had lost his job. His girlfriend had broken up with him before the pandemic. Harry had stood in the snow, listening to him rave about immigrants and women who did not know their place. </p><p>A man living with his mother. Twenty-two. Had just graduated with an art degree. No job. He was going batty from his mother's nagging each time he failed a job interview.  </p><p>A man living with his young son. Forty-one. He had a job that required him to be up at all hours corresponding to the East Asian time-zones. His son was acting out, frustrated from being cooped up for months. He had no child-care. The schools were closed. He had nearly wept before Harry, high-strung and sleep-deprived. </p><p>Delphini's face, even in the dim lighting of the janitorial closet, showed her earnest sympathy. Not sympathy, Harry realized. Empathy. A healer could not separate herself from the mental anguish of her patients and their families, and had to listen to their outpourings of frustration and grief. </p><p>"It will be over with, soon," Harry said tiredly. "Let us not speak about it now." </p><p>"Draco texts them motivational quotes he finds on the internet," she said. "Says he cannot take all that negativity in his life by visiting them." </p><p>Perhaps Harry should take a leaf out of Draco's playbook. Visiting the lonely citizenry that the Ministry had labelled as at-risk, he came back mentally and emotionally exhausted.    </p><p>"He takes after Aunt Narcissa. He is right on track to be a shut-in like her in that damp mausoleum they call a manor," she continued glumly. "Mum says they won't even visit her in the Cotswolds. They like puttering about in their solitude of two. There are days when they don't even run into each other, absorbed in their individual pursuits as they are." </p><p>She was acting perkier than her usual after a few shots of caffeine, Harry realized, and peered at the low-resolution video closely. It was then that he noticed the gold on her finger. </p><p>"Delphini?" </p><p>"Nat proposed!" she enthused, grinning from ear to ear, happy as a clam. </p><p>Nat Rosier. Harry knew the lad from their C.R.U.P. collaboration days. Leader of the cult of Griselda worship prevalent among all her minions. Even Periwinkle Greengrass had stars in her eyes around Griselda.  </p><p>"He asked me after we graduated from school, and then every year since," she said quietly. The tenderness in her eyes when she spoke about Nat gave Harry a pang of wistfulness. </p><p>Ginny had hoped that Harry might ask her to marry him after she had finished her schooling. He had hoped too, that he might find someone who would have him and give in turn, fully and irrevocably, cracks and fractures and all. </p><p>"Dad and Mum are hosting a reception for us," Delphini continued prattling. "In the summer, after Nat's family is vaccinated."</p><p>Any reception that Bellatrix hosted would devolve into an orgiastic massacre, Harry thought unkindly, though he refrained from voicing his opinion to Delphini.  For all he knew, Bellatrix had become a successful wedding planner by following Youtube videos. Everyone had learned ikebana and baking sourdough during the pandemic, from Youtube. Wedding planning, too, could not be difficult.  </p><p>"How is your editing work?"</p><p>"Oh, don't get me started!" Harry groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Ron and Hermione have twenty years of writing gay fan-fiction about Dumbledore and Firenze under their belt. And they have now devolved into writing about the throbbing veins on centaur cock."</p><p>"I used to buy the novellas on the blackmarket in London, right alongside Tunnock's tea cakes." </p><p>"Of course, you did," Harry said laughing, trying to imagine her sneaking a read in the janitorial closet, engrossed in Dumbledore's romantic adventures. "That is not how gay sex works."</p><p>"I know that!" Delphini said, waving her hands in dismissal. They winced when a pail and a mop fell behind her with a clatter. "When we don't have a pandemic, Harry, my emergency ward is filled with gay men and bored housewives stuffing carrots and candlesticks into their privates!" </p><p>Curious, Harry asked her, "Why do you like reading gay fan-fiction?" </p><p>She froze, and pursed her lips as she thought. </p><p>"Heterosexual relationships in novels or in movies are influenced by the gender roles of society," she said finally. "Reading gay fiction allow me to fantasize about a world where two partners can relate to each other as equals, without interference from social norms about gender and sexuality."</p><p>Incisive. As a surgeon's scalpel. Behind her cheerful mien lurked a sharp mind. She reminded him of Hermione once again. </p><p>"Gay relationships have their own norms," he said quietly. How many conversations had fizzled out when Harry had listened to the overtly sexual expectations communicated by a potential date?  Sexual dynamics influenced the relationship dynamics. </p><p>"I wonder if most of us truly want similar notions of equality in partnerships," Delphini replied. "To some, financially being on the same standing is important. To some, it is the socioeconomic strata and class inequality that matters. To some, it is equality in daily chores. Perhaps we are raised in modern society to consider absolute equality a virtue, without being drawn to it organically."</p><p><br/>
------</p><p>He lay in bed that night, mulling over Delphini's words about equality. </p><p>He yearned for the One, for his equal. His longing had fed his magic's sentience and it walked under his skin as parasite. </p><p>Snape and Minerva were not equals in temperament, but there was trust and respect. Dumbledore and Grindelwald had been equals in ambition and magic, and it had led them to tragedy. Nat Rosier was not Delphini's equal, no more than Rodolphus Lestrange was Bellatrix's equal. Hermione and Ron complemented each other, but they were not equals. Harry loved Ron dearly, but Hermione was well out of Ron's league. </p><p>His thoughts circled back to the relationship he frequently mused upon. Abraxas and Voldemort. They had not been equals in power or magic or ambition. Theirs had been a bond of servility chosen in impulse. Yet, theirs had been a love that transcended all, beyond sanity's pale, beyond magic's boundaries, beyond shame and sense.  </p><p>Harry's magic had interpreted equality in its own way, marking Voldemort as the one Harry sought. However, it was not magic that had led to their arrangement during the pandemic. It was loneliness, weighing heavy on them, that had drawn them to each other. </p><p>What did Voldemort think of Delphini's engagement? He was content to let her run her life as she saw fit. Ron would loudly proclaim during their pub nights the many stipulations he had for that future groom who came to wed his daughter. Perhaps Bellatrix would be the parent with terms and conditions for Nat Rosier. </p><p>Voldemort had not contacted him. Harry had resolved not to contact him. Onwards, ever onwards. Clean cord-cutting, as the self-help gurus said in their podcasts. They had had an arrangement during the fag end of the pandemic. It had gone well, during the handful of nights they had ventured into sexual intimacy. And it had ended, by joint consensus. That was all there had been to it. </p><p>He missed the easy domesticity of their mornings. A few days ago, he had found a stock market podcast, and had turned it off after five minutes. It had compared poorly to Voldemort's quiet enthusiasm as he explained to Harry how he had enacted his market capers. </p><p>----</p><p>Ten minutes of standing under the hot shower did not leave him feeling clean. </p><p>His phone was popping bright with message notifications from their group thread. They were enquiring about the success of his latest date. </p><p>He shuffled to his bed and pulled on a pair of clean sweats and a jumper, and lay there watching his ceiling, too tired to even close his eyes. </p><p>A sharp rap on the door startled him. </p><p>Snape. He did not wait for Harry's permission, barging right in, and striding through the living room to the bedroom, and peering down at Harry as if he were that misbegotten potion in the cauldron in Classroom Sixty Four on the third floor at Hogwarts.  </p><p>Whatever he saw alarmed him and his complexion went waxen. Snape, alarmed. Snape, who had unflinchingly walked in the shadow of mortal peril for most of his life. </p><p>Frightened, Harry turned to the little mirror that hung over his chest of drawers, but it cracked before he could glimpse himself. Snape had ever been quick on the draw. </p><p>"Control your mind!" he spat at Harry. </p><p>As if Harry had not tried all that he knew. It was Snape's fault for not teaching him properly two decades ago. </p><p>"Get out!" he managed to scream, as wind whipped unnatural in the small room. His voice was the wind, his form was the wind, and all he was bled into the sentience of the magic that ate of his longing.  </p><p>"You will obliterate the city," Snape muttered, calm despite his plain fear. Brave bastard that he was, he cast a petrifying charm at Harry, in vain.</p><p>How could one petrify the wind? How could one petrify raw magic? The angry reaction caught Snape in its violent whorl, spinning him as a top, smashing him into the wall. Snape was not one to stay down. He crawled to his wand, furious and determined, and cast on Harry a spell that had not been spoken in two decades.  </p><p>"Morsmordre!" </p><p>The stone at Harry's neck heated, anchoring him, and pulled him back into himself, into physical form. </p><p>When he closed his eyes, he was kneeling on the cracked stones of Delphi's ruins, with Saturn watching him overhead, and there were tears of blood sunken into his skin. A pact of surrender and forgiveness that a young woman by the seaside had given him dug into his magic, tethering together the splinters of him. <em>For it is hawthorn that heals the broken heart</em>, sang Firenze's voice. <em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>, a thousand tongues spoke through Trelawney.   From the blood, from the stones, from the ruins, rose evergreen's lullaby, and crept into the meteorite Harry wore about his neck.</p><p>He opened his eyes to find Snape sitting beside him on the bed, watchful. Exhausted, he grabbed Snape's hands in his own. <br/>
 <br/>
"How did you know?" he asked. His voice was hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours. </p><p>"Dumb luck," Snape muttered. "We had best make our way to Albus." </p><p>-------</p><p>"Fascinating," Dumbledore opined. Fawkes trilled, endorsing his view.</p><p>"You don't know what it is," Snape assessed. </p><p>Dumbledore hummed, and poked at the stone that lay flat on his table with his wand of elder. </p><p>Harry drank down the anti-nausea and headache potions Snape had plied him with, and ate a biscuit that Minerva slipped him despite Snape's strict injunction not to eat for an hour after imbibing the potions. </p><p>"We know what it is not," Dumbledore said finally. </p><p>"It is not a bird. It is not a jet. It is not Superman," Snape offered, voice as dry as bones.</p><p>These two. Harry wondered how Minerva put up with them. </p><p>"It is his magic," she spoke up then. "Tempered, in a way I have not observed it before."</p><p>"<em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>," Harry murmured, remembering the surreal vision he had experienced before returning to his body. </p><p>Dumbledore's gaze turned flint-sharp. Fawkes ceased his warbling.</p><p>"Albus?" Minerva queried. </p><p>"Why did you cast the Morsmordre?" Dumbledore asked Snape.  </p><p>The Headmaster knew the answer. He was asking for Minerva's and Harry's enlightenment. After the war years, Harry had not seen this side of Dumbledore. Frankly, he had not missed it at all. </p><p>"Voldemort's magic was the most potent source of power in that place," Snape said carefully, trying to crystallize his instinct to logic. "Potter is a powerful wizard. I did not have a hope in hell of containing his Obscurus. Voldemort's magic, on the other hand, had stayed under his control through his insanity and discorporeation. I thought the uncontrolled might be brought to heel by the controlled." He shrugged and picked at his biscuit. "I cannot say what I was thinking. The Morsmordre charm draws on his magic. And his magic was close by. I hoped it might awaken and counter the Obscurus."</p><p>"You have an exemplary instinct when it comes to magic's mysteries. It has kept you alive and unharmed, and I, for one, am grateful for it."</p><p>"It didn't prevent him throwing me into a wall." </p><p>"I told you to get out!" </p><p>"You would have leveled the city!"</p><p>"You don't even like Aberdeen! You say it smells like coal and fish!"</p><p>"Coal and fish and unwashed humanity," Snape corrected him.  </p><p>"Harry, Severus," Minerva interrupted. "Albus, you owe Harry an answer."</p><p>"Magic," Dumbledore said brightly, waving his hand at the meteorite on his desk. "Is that Belgian flax, Harry?"</p><p>Voldemort had corded the flax for him. Belgian? What did Harry know of flax? </p><p>"He is trying to distract us!" Snape muttered. </p><p>Dumbledore hummed and puttered over to his spindly glass instruments that whirred and whirled. He would not speak until he was well and ready. It was best to let him meander his way back to the conversation when he wished. </p><p>"You must tell Ron and Hermione," Minerva told Harry quietly. </p><p>"I didn't want to worry them."</p><p>Snape raised his eyebrows, but refrained from commentary. Minerva scowled at the pair of them. </p><p>"All right, all right," Harry acquiesced grumpily. He needed a stiff drink. He wondered if Voldemort had opened the bottle of Auchentoshan Harry had given him for Christmas. </p><p>"A wand of hawthorn," Dumbledore remarked. "I contacted Garrick."</p><p>Garrick. Garrick Ollivander. </p><p>"The core, he confirmed, is not a phoenix feather."</p><p>"What is the core, then?" Harry asked curiously. </p><p>Dumbledore had been certain, in the November of 2019, when Delphini had visited Hogwarts, that the core of her wand was phoenix feather. </p><p>"A sliver of horn from a horned serpent. Tom procured it from Brazil."</p><p>Brazil. Harry's snake from the zoo had wanted to make for Brazil. </p><p>Horned serpents. He tried to remember what he had learned of them in Care of Magical Creatures. He may not have a D in the subject, as Delphini did, but he remembered little outside their adventures with Hagrid's menagerie. </p><p>"The first healer of our people was Asclepius," Minerva said. "He carried a staff of hawthorn, and there was a snake entwined about it."</p><p>"His is the constellation of Ophiuchus," she continued.</p><p>Ophiuchus. The Serpent-Holder. </p><p>Snape carried a wand of hawthorn; its core was dragon's heartstring that suited his bravery. Delphini's wand was serpent and hawthorn. </p><p><em>Hawthorn crowns you</em>, Firenze had told Harry. </p><p>"What was Narcissa's wand?" he dared ask. </p><p>"Her father's wand, after his death," Snape answered somberly. "She stopped using magic in the early 1980s." </p><p>She had little magic of her own. And yet, in her was magic, of hawthorn blossoming on yew's evergreen.</p><p>"Harry should stay here," Minerva said, dragging them back to the original subject of discussion. "It is unsafe to return to his flat." </p><p>"The Castle's magic is temperamental," Dumbledore cautioned. "Wear your stone, Harry. It has its uses, as Severus proved."</p><p>-------</p><p>Harry wound up in a little room over Dumbledore's quarters. Fawkes flew up to him often, to keep him company. </p><p>"Oh, this is unprecedented," Hermione complained, as she came up without information after researching troves of tomes. </p><p>"It is Harry," Ron said sagely.</p><p>They were taking it better than Harry had feared.</p><p>"It could be worse," Hermione pointed out.</p><p>How? </p><p>"You could be sleeping with Voldemort <em>again</em>," Ron said, with a ghastly shudder. </p><p>Harry did not know how to explain that sleeping with Voldemort had been better than the hundred and one dates he had been on. If he had to negotiate boundaries and terms once again with a prospective date, and go through rounds of mutual shit-testing, he would explode. Perhaps not even metaphorically, as he hosted a parasite that was capable of obliterating city blocks.</p><p>"Such gestalt. Much life," Hermione sighed.  </p><p>-------</p><p>He spent his nights playing <em>Portal</em> with Hugo. GLaDOS snarked and baited them into failure, again and again. </p><p>"How is your dating going, Harry?"</p><p>"It is going well."</p><p>
  <em>"This was a triumph</em><br/>
<em>I'm making a note here</em><br/>
<em>Huge success</em><br/>
<em>It's hard to overstate my satisfaction"</em>
</p><p>"GLaDOS and you have a great deal in common. Including passive-aggressive snark," Hugo quipped. </p><p>"I am not the one living in my parents' basement, eating crisps and swilling beer like a Viking!" </p><p>"You are worse off than I am. You live in your old Headmaster's attic, eating shortbread and drinking tea like an old marm!" </p><p>"I have a job, Hugo."</p><p>"Yes, telling jobless shut-ins on the dole living in their parents' basements not to off themselves. Pompons! <em>We are in this together</em>." </p><p>"Vote, then," Harry reminded him.</p><p>The election was in the first week of April.</p><p>"I don't like any of the candidates," Hugo muttered. "Anarchy. That is where it is at, Harry. Decentralization of power!" </p><p>Decentralization was Voldemort's favorite subject. And Dumbledore's. Cryptocurrencies and blockchains, smart contracts and DeFi, they said, were the way forward. </p><p>And water futures.</p><p>Dumbledore was investing in water futures, because he had seen Water World and believed that the future was water. It was Harry's fault for sharing his Netflix queue with Dumbledore. How was he to have known that his crush on Kevin Costner would lead to Dumbledore orchestrating the collapse of society? </p><p>"<em>But there's no sense crying over every mistake</em><br/>
<em>You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake</em><br/>
<em>And the science gets done and you make a neat gun</em><br/>
<em>For the people who are still alive."</em></p><p>Speaking of Dumbledore, the man entered Harry's attic. </p><p>"Yes?" </p><p>"Who is Britney and why must we free her?" Dumbledore demanded, floating his phone to Harry, with Twitter open. </p><p>Rose had been retweeting #FreeBritney furiously for days. It had finally caught Dumbledore's attention. He followed only Tony Robbins, Stephen Fry, and Nigella Lawson. </p><p>Harry logged out of Steam, abandoning Hugo to GLaDOS's tender mercies, and explained Britney Spears to Dumbledore, who had missed the pop princesses of the 1990s due to his firmly held opinion that the 1990s were a musical wasteland. </p><p>"This merits action!" Dumbledore decided, and retweeted Rose's passionate tweet-storm.</p><p>
  <em>"And believe me I am still alive</em><br/>
<em>I feel fantastic and I'm still alive"</em>
</p><p>-------</p><p>Harry's phone rung. He stared at it in surprise. It was not Voldemort's number. He had memorized it. </p><p>"Harry?"</p><p>"Draco?" </p><p>"There was an attempted assassination of the Minister." </p><p><em>Attempted</em>. It had not succeeded. </p><p>"Is Madam Marchbanks safe?" </p><p>"Yes. A rioting mob. Protesting the restrictions. They seized the Ministry. We suspect they had support from the ranks of the Aurors. It has been resolved." </p><p>Why had Draco called Harry? </p><p>"Delphini!" </p><p>"She is safe. She was at St. Mungo's."</p><p>"What happened, Draco?" </p><p>"Nat Rosier defended the Minister valiantly. He succumbed to his wounds forty minutes ago."</p><p>It was Valentine's Day.</p><p>---------</p><p>Harry's calls to Delphini, on WhatsApp, on Telegram, on Signal, on Zoom, on FaceTime, all went unanswered. His messages were marked unread. </p><p>"Voldemort won't let her come to harm," Dumbledore soothed him, fiddling with his spindly glass instruments.</p><p>"They were engaged."</p><p>She had been ebullient in her joy the last time they had spoken. Nat had asked her after her graduation from school. He had asked her every year since. </p><p>Having turned the corner on the pandemic, after the longest year of their lives, after having to watch hundreds die in her care or survive without magic, after beholding dozens of her colleagues leave the profession due to the repercussions on their mental health, she had finally been truly happy. </p><p>The Floo flared bright, as Dumbledore circumvented border controls. </p><p>Bellatrix's Cruciatus, red and blazing shot through, hitting the portrait of Dippet and leaving it smoking; portrait's Dippet hastily leapt out of his frame into the next. </p><p>"Oh, it is you," she said, peering at Dumbledore. Invigorated, she raised her wand again. </p><p>"Harry wished to see Delphini." </p><p>She lowered her wand. </p><p>"She is not here." </p><p>"Where is she?" Harry asked, running out of patience. "Bellatrix, I wanted to see if she was all right." </p><p>"How can she be all right?" she asked, baffled. "Potter, she was the Healer who received the wounded from the skirmish. She watched him die, despite her best efforts. She went to Voldemort, to beg him to save the boy."</p><p>Lily had begged Voldemort for Harry's life. Voldemort had not shown mercy that night, frantic as he had been to end the war for Abraxas's sake. Four decades later, Delphini had begged her father for Nat's life, in vain. </p><p>"Where is she?" </p><p>"Potter, grief is a private affair," Bellatrix said quietly, setting aside belligerence and snobbery. "She is not here. She took Rodolphus's motorcycle and fled."</p><p>He did not understand this woman. She cut the Floo call before he could say another word. </p><p>"She has <em>one</em> daughter!" he exclaimed furiously. </p><p>The stone at his chest was warm.</p><p>"I need a port-key," he told Dumbledore. </p><p>"And handy circumventions of border controls," Dumbledore remarked, eyeing him warily. "Harry, are you sure?" </p><p>--------</p><p>Snow blanketed Greece. Harry made his way up the Pleistos valley through the snowstorm, following his instinct. </p><p>All was dark in the skies over the Parnassus, but for a single planet. </p><p>Saturn. <br/>
 <br/>
Spell-light flashed red through the ruins of the temple. </p><p>Harry trudged up through the ankle-deep snow, in the storm, passing an abandoned motorcycle until he stood under the broken pillars of the Temple of Apollo. </p><p>On the broken stones, illumined by Saturn's bright, Voldemort wept tears of blood under Delphini's Cruciatus. </p><p>"I asked you to save him," she whispered, sorrowed past tears, bereft and alone, Saturn's child. "You saved Abraxas. Why didn't you save my Nat?" </p><p>Her wand hand shook badly when he screamed. The curse fell. </p><p>Anguished, broken, bleeding, he scrambled to his knees and told her in a shaking voice, "I could not allow you to pay the cost I paid, Delphini." </p><p>"It was my choice!" she shouted, and red blazed from her wand once more. </p><p>The earth shook beneath Harry's feet from the power of her curse. Voldemort's scream was silent, drawn-out, robbed of breath and voice, but his magic remained tightly restrained. </p><p>"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, but Delphini swerved away, and transfigured the stones into gargoyles that trapped him. He transfigured them to snow, breaking free.   </p><p>"I am the final cost he paid," he yelled at her. The babe Voldemort had made an orphan of. The boy that had lived in a cupboard. The man made Obscurial by longing. </p><p>"He sold himself first. His magic and his sanity. Then he came to Godric's Hollow. It condemned him to wander for thirteen years in forests old, begging for death's ending! Why would he want his fate for you?" </p><p>She collapsed upon the navel of the world, exhausted, head in her hands, bereft and alone, and the gold on her finger glinted innocent in the dark. Snow dotted her curls, as she mourned the heart's filthy lesson.  </p><p>Harry picked his way to her through the ruins. She fell silent into his arms when he embraced her, moved past even the outlet of tears. Hastily, Harry cast a few warming charms on her. </p><p>"I should heal him," she said briskly, picking up her wand of hawthorn again. </p><p>He followed her to where Voldemort lay unmoving on the stones. The ground shook again, but Harry sensed the magic of evergreen that held it steady. Voldemort had lost consciousness and control over his body, but he had not lost his fine control over his magic even then.   </p><p>Delphini enervated him, and began methodically cleaning him up of blood and bodily fluids with a healer's dispassion. </p><p>Remembering from the days of the war how parched by thirst the victims of the Cruciatus had been, Harry conjured a glass of water and offered it to Voldemort. </p><p>"He will need assistance," Delphini said quietly, shifting to Voldemort's other side. </p><p>In for a penny, in for a pound. </p><p>Harry helped her prop Voldemort up, and brought the glass to Voldemort's mouth carefully. Delphini massaged his throat until he swallowed, and cleaned up the spilled water from his chin and chest. When she made to mop his sweat-drenched brow, Voldemort flinched away.   </p><p>"You should have fought back," she said glumly. </p><p>Voldemort would not duel Delphini, even if his life was at stake. </p><p>She swore and got to her feet, trembling despite the warming charms Harry had cast on her. Turning her back to them, she walked away. Voldemort's eyes flashed in panic and he tried to lift his head to track her. </p><p>"She shan't go far," Harry hushed Voldemort. "I spelled the motorcycle to awaken only to my command." </p><p>Voldemort listed into his hold with a fraught sigh. </p><p>"How long were you under the Cruciatus?" </p><p>Voldemort shook his head. His magic was the only steady aspect of him. Harry dug about in his pockets for a handkerchief. It was one of Dumbledore's. There were bitcoin emblems embroidered on the cloth. He wiped away the tears of blood on Voldemort's face gently. </p><p>"I am terrible at making port-keys that circumvent border controls," he admitted. </p><p>"I can," Voldemort said hoarsely. "A few minutes more."</p><p>"Is there anything I can do?" </p><p>Voldemort did not reply. </p><p>Touch, Harry remembered, thinking back to their days at Swanage. He shifted until Voldemort was braced in the circle of his arms, and then cupped Voldemort's cheek. The gesture had unspooled Voldemort before, in and outside the bed. It came to Harry's rescue again, bittersweet, as Voldemort's composure cracked once more. </p><p>Shattered, he wept under the ruined roof of Delphi's temple, in Harry's arms, frightened and clinging to the hands that held him in wretched desperation.</p><p>"It is all right. You did the right thing. She will know it too, one day. Then she will thank you for it. I have you now," Harry whispered, knowing it was nonsensical babble, and yet taking heart in how his words led to weeping's close. "I have you, I promise."</p><p>"Harry-" </p><p>"Hush," Harry told him, kissing his clammy brow, and holding him close. </p><p>"I must apologise," Voldemort murmured, even as his cheek pressed easy into Harry's palm, as a lonely man that starved for touch. "I have been overwrought."</p><p>Harry closed his eyes when Voldemort turned to kiss the core of his palm. It was not premeditated. It was habit's candid intimacy.</p><p>Delphini stormed back in, guilty, frightened, and knelt beside them. </p><p>"All that caffeine has affected your body's thermoregulation," Voldemort remarked, and the air warmed about them ceding gracefully to the whims of his magic. </p><p>"Papa-" She buried her face in his chest, her breath hitching when his hand came shaking to her curly mop of unruly hair. </p><p>"You don't wish to return."</p><p>"I cannot." </p><p>"Where will you go?"</p><p>"I don't know," she confessed.</p><p>"May I accompany you?"</p><p>She shook her head. </p><p>"You blame me," Voldemort said, disconsolate, not even striving to hide his sorrow. </p><p>"Let me come with you, Delphini," Harry offered impulsively. "I have all the time in the world."</p><p>"Your friends-" she began, shocked, grateful. </p><p>"They will understand."</p><p>They would.</p><p>"Your job-"</p><p>"Bugger my job," Harry said brightly, and did not know a whit of guilt. Good riddance. "Catch some sleep. We can leave at sunrise."</p><p>She turned to her father. She needed his magic to sleep, her mind too frayed by guilt and grief to allow her to fall asleep without assistance. </p><p>Harry conjured for her pillows and a sleeping bag. Voldemort's magic was sure and soft as it wrapped her in a lullaby of yew's eternal promise. </p><p>Seeing the grave concern on his features, Harry said gently, "I will watch over her and bring her back to Swanage safely."</p><p>"The Obscurus," Voldemort replied, exhausted. "The divergence between your magic and your will is strengthening, Harry. It is <em>snowing</em> in Athens." </p><p>Freak storm, they had termed the unseasonal weather on the internet. Harry had been called a freak for most of his childhood.  </p><p>"The stone helped anchor me to my body," he told Voldemort. </p><p>The stone had fallen from the skies, to Delphi's feet, in these ancient ruins where Voldemort had once surrendered madness and ambition. </p><p>"My magic," Voldemort said softly, eyeing him in wonder. "It is my magic that grounds the Obscurus."</p><p>The awe in his gaze touched Harry. </p><p>"Why are you surprised?" he teased. "Your magic healed the Castle." </p><p>Voldemort shook his head wanly. </p><p>"My magic was different then. I was different." </p><p>Harry had spontaneously resigned from his job as the Minister of Loneliness. He  had decided to go on a road-trip with Delphini on her stolen motorcycle. </p><p>Taking a deep breath, he kissed Voldemort. Surprise and surrender tasted softly sweet against Harry's mouth. Above them, on the ruined gateway, shone a single <em>E</em>. </p><p>"You are the same, then and now. <em>You are</em>," Harry reminded him. </p><p> Voldemort's expression turned pensive. </p><p>"I know. I will bring her back to you," Harry promised.<br/>
 <br/>
"I know you will," Voldemort said quietly. "If you wished-"</p><p>Harry stared at him, wanting their easy domesticity of old, and yet resolved that he would move onwards, ever onwards.  </p><p>"This is unprecedented," Voldemort said, and for the first time in their acquaintance, he moved to initiate a kiss. </p><p>His magic was spangled with the red of holly, naked in offering, and it took all of Harry's restraint and resolve to refrain from pressing his advantage once more. </p><p>Voldemort was shaken by the events of the past three days. Harry refused to exploit the vulnerability inherent in his situation. </p><p>Seeing Harry's decision, Voldemort stepped away. </p><p><br/>
------</p><p>At dawn, Harry woke. Delphini was watching the sunrise. </p><p>"He left while I was asleep," she said softly. </p><p>Voldemort had reached the limit of his heart's endurance, Harry suspected, burdened by the blame his daughter assigned him. He had not stayed to hear her fling more accusations at him, or to part on bitter words. </p><p>He trusted Harry to protect her. The epiphany had kept Harry awake for most of the night. </p><p>"Harry," she whispered then, surprised. </p><p>She was staring at his palms. She caught his right hand in hers and splayed it open to show him. </p><p>Faint lines of fate were grooved on the skin of his right palm, blooming from the core in defiant streaks. How many times had Voldemort kissed him upon the center of that palm?  </p><p>Over them, the <em>E</em> of the temple stood watch beneath the dawning sun. </p><p>"Where shall we go, Delphini?"</p><p>"Away."</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Hold the Line</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You may wish to read <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158347">Hold the Line</a> before reading this, to see the second layer woven in. It isn't necessary.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>March 2021</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Sirius had a motorbike like this one," he told Delphini, as they pumped petrol at an Aegean station. </p><p>The attendants and the cashiers wore gloves and masks. </p><p>"Arthur Weasley has it now. Molly does not approve, mind you, but she thinks it keeps him from tinkering with cars again. He had an enchanted car. Ron and I crashed it." </p><p>Delphini was listening avidly.  </p><p>"Where did Sirius get it from?" she queried. </p><p>Harry had never thought to ask. There had been posters in Sirius's bedroom, of motorbikes and skimpily clad women. Neither Molly nor Kreacher had approved of the decor. </p><p>"This was a wedding gift from Regulus Black to Dad. Dad enchanted this wreck so many times. When he was in Azkaban, Uncle Lucius kept it for him," Delphini remarked. </p><p>Had Sirius and Regulus bought their motorbikes together? </p><p>He waited until Delphini had worn her helmet. He had insisted that they buy helmets before embarking on their trip. The motorbike was enchanted to fly. She had flown it from the Cotswolds to Greece, without packing food or clothing or currency. Harry had dragged them from the mountains to the inhabited areas. </p><p>They were in Farsala, at the far edge of the Thessalian plain.  </p><p>"You are lucky that I have my phone and bank cards with me," he muttered, paying for the petrol. </p><p>"I know how to pickpocket. Mum taught me."</p><p>Bellatrix Lestrange, imparting miseducation with glee. </p><p>"Refrain from petty theft," he advised, glad to see a gleam in Delphini's eyes. She had not smiled once, but the venom of her grief was softening, directing itself inwards than outwards.   </p><p>When had she last slept? Without Voldemort's magic, her sorrow roved wild in her. She had sat up through the nights they had spent in motels, quiet and staring at the gold on her hand. Harry had not had the heart to ask her to take a sleeping pill, though he had obtained some from the pharmacy.  </p><p>In a vain bid to cheer her up, he had bought her <em>Bougatsa</em>, the cream-filled phyllo pies that were popular in the cafes of Farsala. </p><p>"Papa makes this better," she had muttered, though she ate her way through the pile Harry had bought. Stress-eating. As far as evils went, he decided it was an improvement over the loss of appetite that plagued her. </p><p>"My turn to ride pillion," she said, stretching her arms and yawning. </p><p>The wind in her face might lull her to sleep, Harry hoped. </p><p>He had booked them into a small Vrbo for the night. </p><p>Tired, finally, that night she nodded off half-way through telling Harry about the odd case of the patient whose teeth grew by an inch every Monday. </p><p>Sighing, he adjusted the blankets strewn about her haphazard, thinking about the crisp sailor-corners Voldemort practiced at Swanage. </p><p>----</p><p>"Where are you?" Ron asked. </p><p>"Farsala." </p><p>"In the middle of a pandemic?" Ron muttered, looking up the place on Google Maps. "Harry, that is not a hot tourist destination on Lonely Planet."</p><p>"We went where the road took us." </p><p>"What is this? Hiking the Oregon Trail? Into the Wild?" Ron shook his head. The crappy resolution on WhatsApp video made his ears look funny. </p><p>"You are just jealous." </p><p>"Of how you circumvented border controls and escaped to the Continent on a flying motorbike? Yes," Ron admitted. "Of how you are babysitting Voldemort's sprog? No way. Hermione and I can't wait to have Rose and Hugo ejected from our basement, Harry. They are driving us batty."</p><p>"Any luck with their job search?"</p><p>"Hugo has had an offer from the Ministry, as a clerk in the Department of Transportation. He refuses to take it, because #anarchy." Ron was both amused and horrified. "It pays decently and has a pension. In these times, what else can he ask for?"<br/>
 <br/>
The trouble, Harry mused, was that Ron and Hermione were atypical examples of success. After the war, when Hermione had been burned out and had wanted nothing to do with the Ministry or a high-stress job, she had sat down to write romance novels for a lark, and Ron had fallen into keeping her company. They had become wildly successful household names, not only in their country, but throughout the English speaking Wizarding world. Their success, while inspiring, could not be replicated by others. Rose and Hugo wandered through their young adulthood, idealizing the notion of success they had grown up with, and it had not brought them a measure of happiness. </p><p>"Did Delphini resign from St. Mungo's?" </p><p>"I haven't asked," Harry replied. </p><p>"Children these days! They are all caught up in their feelings, with no sense of pragmatism, about how money works, about how food gets on the table!" </p><p>"You sound like Molly now."</p><p>"Well, Mum is right about this."  </p><p>"I resigned from the Ministry. Over text message." </p><p>"Percy is complaining about it most vociferously indeed! Hugo thinks that is the ballsiest move he has seen. He has a screenshot of your message as his wallpaper." Ron shrugged. "It was a made-up job, Harry. I wouldn't worry about it. <em>Minister of Loneliness</em>. The younger voters are caught up in their feelings and Fudge wants to show them how woke he is! If he truly wanted to fix loneliness, he would change his policies on housing, employment, and taxation. Nobody can afford a family anymore, can they?"</p><p>He went on full-steam about the vanishing middle class. </p><p>Harry leaned back in the wicker chair in the entrance foyer of their little Vrbo, and listened to Ron's informed opinions until he fell asleep. </p><p>----</p><p>"I am glad that you are accompanying her," Draco said, exhausted. There were dark circles about his eyes. He looked as if he had not had a wink of sleep in days. "She does not have a motorcycle license." </p><p>"Neither do I." </p><p>"Splendid," Draco said fervently, leaning back in his Herman Miller Aero chair that looked anachronistic against the wood and the gilded panels of his study.</p><p>There was snow on his cloak. Harry had not noticed it until then, with the pisspoor internet connection in the Vrbo.  </p><p>"Did it snow in Wiltshire?" he asked, surprised. </p><p>It had snowed in Athens, but Voldemort had said that was the emotional turbulence of Harry's Obscurus affecting the weather. </p><p>"I came from Hogwarts," Draco said, distracted and deep in his musings. </p><p>"Hogwarts?" </p><p>Draco startled, realizing what he had let slip. "Forget I said anything! Mum will have my head!"</p><p>Narcissa was implacable when it came to Voldemort. Harry remembered how she had made clear to him her intention to protect Voldemort from the Obscurus. She had that wand of yew. She had ended the war Voldemort had begun. She protected his secrets, as fiercely as she protected him.</p><p>"Is he all right, Draco?" Harry queried, in rising alarm. </p><p>"He had a seizure midway through Apparation," Draco muttered. "The Castle's magic pulled him home, for the definition of home it understands. Minerva found him by the Lake during her morning walk. He was badly Splinched. She patched him up. Then she sent for me before Dumbledore or Severus could find out. Bloody hell. I have never seen him in such a state before."</p><p>Seeing the horror on Harry's face, he hastily added, "Periwinkle Greengrass came by. He is fine now."</p><p>Was he lying? </p><p>"Don't tell her," Draco said, turning as implacable as his mother. The steel in him was forged of war and grief. "The manor has been his sanctuary, through it all." <br/>
   <br/>
Abraxas's legacy had come to Narcissa. And Draco walked in her footsteps. Their home remained Voldemort's safe haven, and they intended to protect him even from his own child. </p><p>"He did not tell us how he wound up in that state," Draco continued pensively. "I feared he might have been ambushed." </p><p>Voldemort's magic had protected him through decades of discorporeation and insanity. Harry could not imagine how an ambush might even succeed.</p><p>They needed to know. They needed to know what had happened.</p><p>"It was the Cruciatus," Harry said softly. "I don't know how long she had him under the curse. He was weeping tears of blood when I arrived."</p><p>Draco stilled, and the ugly grief on his face was plain. </p><p>"We did not teach her the Unforgivables."</p><p>Nobody had taught Harry the Unforgivables. He had successfully cast the Cruciatus on Bellatrix in the Ministry. </p><p>"You need to mean it," Draco whispered. The same words that Bellatrix had mocked Harry with once. </p><p>Delphini had meant it. She had been moved past tears. There had been no maelstrom in her when Harry had arrived at the temple. There had been no wailing or weeping. She had stood there, eyes bright in hatred, and her hand had not been unsteady when she had held her father under the curse. </p><p>"She is a Black," Draco said finally, with the weight of history heavy on his shoulders. "Blood turning against blood is our curse." </p><p>Sirius and Andromeda had turned on their family. Draco was not speaking of them. </p><p>"Have you seen the manor, Harry? Have you seen the grounds?" </p><p>"Only in photographs." </p><p>Photographs taken during the reconnaissance activities in wartime. They had pored over the pictures, marking vulnerabilities and entrances, grilling Snape on the tunnels or secret passages that may exist. </p><p>"There is an arbor of ash trees that line the path to the house," Draco said softly. "They were planted in the early 1940s, by Hyperion Malfoy, to commemorate his son's miraculous escape from the clutches of certain death. As a child, I would accompany Mum on her walks. Even at mid-winter's apex, the arbor was a warm place, and if you listened keenly in the night's still, you could hear upon the wind the paeans of love two had once sung to each other under the eaves of that grove."</p><p>Abraxas's love lingered in the place where he had gifted Voldemort sanctuary, four decades after his death. Harry knew then, abruptly, why Voldemort had established his residence at Swanage. How could he bear to live at the manor, when all about, as dust motes, stood suspended love's ode?  Voldemort's magic was the evergreen of yew, sorrowed soft by mourning. </p><p>"Cygnus loathed his wife. She had given him no sons. Andromeda ran away. Bellatrix turned to increasingly darker avenues of research, in a bid to protect her mother and the sister that remained. Mum was there, imprisoned in her room, left in the care of their house elf, huddled by the barred window through which she saw the poppies in their overgrown garden. Our grandmother, Druella, had a green thumb; flowers grew about her even in that house of the blues where she lay with a broken spine and no wand." </p><p>"Cygnus had the House Elf put his wife out of her misery. Voldemort came to the funeral. His magic drew him to the little room where a girl of five or six lay starving, afraid to weep for her mother lest it draw the attention of the House Elf or her father." </p><p>"His magic drew him to her once again, after five years, when she killed her father in self-defense. He brought her here." </p><p>"She walked beneath the ash trees alone, and heard the songs of love emblazoned on the wind in the grove. <em>This, then, is home</em>, she decided. Hers became the long watch of years, as she nursed a dying cripple and a man whose sanity unravelled day after day. Of her resolve, of her devotion, of her magic's sacrifice, rose the first hawthorn beneath the ash."</p><p><em>Hawthorn crowns you</em>, Firenze had told Harry. </p><p>On Voldemort's magic, as snowdrops on evergreen, bloomed the hawthorn true. </p><p>"I have to go," Harry told Draco abruptly and cut the call. </p><p><em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>. </p><p>Harry had interpreted it as a prophecy, as a design of fate. He had erred in his understanding. </p><p>Harry's fate had been wiped clean from his hands after Narcissa's war. With her sacrifice, she had cleaved resolutely the prophecy and the two it had marked equals. Harry had not been able to speak Parseltongue since. His scar was no repository of soul. There was no bond mysterious or fated. </p><p>While he was a powerful wizard, perhaps the most powerful of his generation, he was no longer the Dark Lord's destined equal. </p><p>Fate had not brought their paths to cross again. It had been happenstance first, and then choices made of free will. </p><p>Voldemort had not chosen Delphini. His attachment to her he had not foreseen. She was his fate.<br/>
  <br/>
<em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>. </p><p>Harry got to his feet, hastily scurrying out for gulps of cold air to settle his magic and mind.</p><p>Voldemort had chosen Abraxas. </p><p>He had chosen Narcissa.</p><p>He had chosen-</p><p>It began to snow.</p><p>----</p><p>Thessaloniki had been built for Queen Thessalonike of Macedon. She had been Alexander's sister, Cassander's wife, and Philip's daughter. Her son had put her to death. </p><p>Harry purchased two plates of <em>tigania</em> from one of the street stalls by the White Tower. As an afterthought, he acquired a bottle of ouzo. </p><p>He kept an eye on Delphini, who was wandering by the deserted waterfront alone. She had not put up her hair in a bun. It whipped about in the winds, curly and tangled.  Helmet-hair, Harry thought wryly. </p><p>"The Gorgon," the street stall vendor said, in broken English. "Your daughter reminds me of the Gorgon of the Aegean sea."</p><p>Those they encountered on their brief forays into civilization mistook Delphini for Harry's daughter. It had left him uneasy the first few times, but he had tired of correcting the street vendors and the motel managers. He ought to be grateful that nobody had suspected him of trafficking a young woman. Willowy and naif-like, Delphini did not look her age. </p><p>"Gorgon?" </p><p>"The Queen was Thessalonike, sister to Alexander, daughter to Philip of Macedonia, wife to Cassander. When Alexander died, his grief-stricken sister attempted to end her life by jumping into the sea. Instead of drowning, however, she became a mermaid passing judgment on mariners throughout the centuries and across the seven seas. To the sailors who encountered her she would pose the question: <em>Is Alexander the King alive?</em>" </p><p>"<em>He lives and reigns and conquers the world</em>, they would say, to placate her. Given this answer, she would allow the ship and her crew to sail safely away in calm seas. Any other answer would transform her into the raging Gorgon, bent on sending the ship and every sailor on board to the bottom." </p><p>The Obscurus in Harry, when it came forth, transformed him from man to vengeful formlessness. The weather that followed them was bitterly cold and unseasonal. A lonely mermaid in the sea, waiting in vain for her brother, transformed to a Gorgon in despairing rage. </p><p>He made his way back from the Modiano market to the waterfront. </p><p>"I make an unhappy drunk," Delphini muttered, when she saw the ouzo.</p><p>"Good," Harry said, passing her a plate of the pan-fried pork. "I am a giggly drunk. We will even each other out."</p><p>On the deserted waterfront, beneath the White Tower of Thessaloniki, they watched the sunset over the Aegean Sea.</p><p>"Job's Coffin." </p><p>She pointed at the first faint stars on the twilight skies. Four stars that formed a quadrilateral in the shape of a coffin. </p><p>"The constellation of Delphinus," Harry remembered, from his Astronomy lessons. </p><p>Job's Coffin was the four-pointed asterism in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. </p><p>The Blacks and their stars. </p><p>Instinct made Harry cast a Lumos. He peered drunken at his palm. The lines of fate were sharp on his skin. </p><p>"Mum and Dad walked under the stars of Delphinus on their last night of freedom before they were taken to Azkaban," she murmured. "Aunt Narcissa buried Abraxas under her hawthorn, beneath these stars. Papa wandered in ancient forests, among ash trees, meaner than a spirit, and all he remembered was how he had been once loved by a man under the stars of Job's Coffin."   </p><p>"Sixteen minutes," she whispered then, softened by the pale red of dusk, Gorgon transforming to a mourning girl. "I held him under the curse for sixteen minutes."</p><p>Harry gently removed the bottle of ouzo from her lax hands. She hunched over, drawing her knees up, burying her head in that little cradle she had made for herself. The bumps of her vertebrae were plain through the thin wool robes she wore.</p><p>"It wasn't fair," she mumbled fiercely. "It wasn't fair, Harry. I hadn't even-" She choked on the words. "We had been waiting for our wedding."</p><p>Ron had wanted to wait for the wedding. Hermione had had other plans, and strong opinions on the cult of virginity. </p><p>The One. </p><p>Harry had spent two weeks after the war in Snape's rooms. He had trusted Snape, despite their complex relationship. In his twenties, he had sought encounters in bars and found men by stirring his wishing cauldron relentlessly. Then he had given up, wanting more, wanting what his heart longed for. In his thirties, he had been celibate, fiercely longing for the One, and his yearning had woken his magic into sentience.</p><p>It began to snow. </p><p>"Your emotions are all over the place," Delphini muttered, casting an Impervious charm on them. <br/>
 <br/>
She was right. The warmth of the stone he wore contained his magic's impulses. His fraught worries over Delphini's welfare kept him grounded. </p><p>Snape was at his best in the face of mortal peril. Harry was at his best when he could care for another. Without peril and purpose, they withered and longed. Dumbledore had married a Castle, when he had been left without heart and purpose after the war. </p><p>"You are avoiding something," Delphini said thoughtfully, peering at him with the absolute concentration of a drunk.</p><p>Avoidance. Denial. Careful circumnavigation. </p><p>The stars of Job's Coffin twinkled down at him.</p><p>He had attempted to text Voldemort a few times, and had not found the words.</p><p>There was no precedent. </p><p>----</p><p>"The Kalemegdan Fortress," Minerva remarked.</p><p>"We made it to Belgrade yesterday night," Harry confirmed. </p><p>It was nearing seven in the morning. He was walking by the riverfront alone. Delphini was still asleep in their Vrbo. He had not wanted to wake her, knowing how little she slept without Voldemort's magic as lullaby. </p><p>"Have you visited the city?" he asked Minerva curiously. She was not one for travel, but perhaps Dumbledore had dragged her along on some mission or the other.</p><p>"Riddle sent me a postcard once from Belgrade. It showed the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, with the fortress overlooking the waters. In war's wake, the city had been razed and left impoverished."</p><p>The city, Harry had read in one of the tourist guides, had been razed nearly fifty times, and battled over more than a hundred times. Strategically located at the confluence of two mighty rivers, at the entrance of the Balkan Peninsula, little wonder that it had been a prize trophy to conquerors. </p><p>Voldemort had once told Harry that Minerva had known him in his youth. Draco had said that Minerva had patched Voldemort up before Dumbledore or Snape could find him. </p><p>"The gates of the Castle had been destroyed in the bombing by the Luftwaffe and the Allies in succession. <em>Hold the Line</em>, Riddle wrote to me."</p><p>Minerva had been in love with Alastor once, Snape had said. Her unrequited longing had left her ruined and lonely, and she had returned to Hogwarts and found purpose in Albus Dumbledore's cause. </p><p>Snape had waited for her, patiently, for twenty years. He had held the line.</p><p>"When did you know that Snape was the One?" Harry asked softly. </p><p>"Oh, I knew, viscerally, subconsciously. I refused to accept it," she said wryly. "It took two wars and three pandemics to whittle away my obstinacy. I was forty when Albus noticed the boy's interest in me. I was forty-five when Severus came to me, with a wand of hawthorn, fresh from Azkaban, emaciated and alone. I did not heed him then. I did not heed my heart." </p><p>"He did not give up," Harry murmured. </p><p>It was Snape. Snape never gave up.</p><p>"He lives in a make-believe of his own construct, not unlike Albus," Minerva said, not without fond amusement. "They excel at placating themselves with hope's intangible nectar."</p><p>Minerva, as Harry, had struggled for years and years in loneliness, refusing to believing that to her would come the love she longed for. And when it came, young and brave and truculent, she had turned away in fear, refusing to acknowledge it. </p><p><em>The miserable have only their misery to cling to</em>, Hermione had once told Harry, after they had watched <em>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</em> together.  The Bishop in the cartoon film had scared Rose. </p><p>"Riddle is not as resilient as Severus or Albus," Minerva said quietly, cuttingly perceptive when it came to Harry's unspoken doubts, for her heart had walked the lonely places his trudged upon. </p><p>"You are not discouraging the course of action I mean to set upon." </p><p>She did not reply. Her gaze held plain another truth. She had his best interests at heart, but there was an older allegiance she took no pains to hide, an allegiance of friendship.</p><p>"The Castle has chosen a new Headmaster," she said softly. </p><p>"Dumbledore!" Harry began, alarmed, remembering what Snape had once said about the willfulness of the Castle in choosing her Headmasters. </p><p>It was not Minerva. Who would it be? Snape? Snape was Dumbledore's protege. He was powerful and resolute. It could not be, Harry realized. The Castle was a selfish mistress. She would demand absolute fealty. Snape had given himself to Minerva long ago. </p><p>"After Albus was chosen by the Castle, the sentient magic of her severed the bond with Headmaster Dippet. The sundering caused his death. After Headmaster Dippet's passing, until Albus returned from the war, Riddle's magic held the Castle intact and its denizens safe. Her heir and her Headmaster, and their pact has held her since the 1940s." </p><p>The Castle would not choose Voldemort, Harry knew. Why would she? If she had wanted Voldemort, she would have chosen him long ago. </p><p> It came down to magic. </p><p>The Castle's sentience was drawn to the fierceness of Dumbledore's magic. Voldemort's evergreen, cloaked in mourning's wise, had meant conciliation to her, as it had healed the wounds Salazar had left in betrayal's wake. </p><p>"Minerva, you cannot mean-" He closed his eyes as desperate grief cut off his words. </p><p>"It is unprecedented," she admitted softly. "I believe the Castle chose her when she first came to us in 2019."</p><p>"She has not noticed the call." </p><p>"She is ignorant and uneducated in these matters of old magic," Minerva reminded him, not unkindly. "I would not be surprised if her personality is starting to show aspects of the Castle's nature by now." </p><p>Blood price. The Castle wanted Salazar's blood consecrated as Headmaster to sate an ancient betrayal. Voldemort had been spared, for the Castle loved as a mother might, in her amoral and willful sentience. </p><p>Delphini was of the blood of Slytherin. Her mother was the greatest duelist of their times. Her father, they said, was the greatest wizard that had lived, second to only Albus Dumbledore.  </p><p>There had been no mercy in Delphini when she had held her father under her curse. A young woman made Gorgon. The mindless sentience of magic that had begun infusing her own was ruthless, in cutting down the ties that would seek to hold her away from the Castle.  </p><p>First things first. </p><p>"We need to protect Dumbledore."</p><p>"Albus is safe as long as Delphini does not succumb to the Castle's call," Minerva reassured him. </p><p>"How long has he known?" </p><p>"I suspect he invited her to the Castle because he had sensed it in the bedrock's magic," Minerva admitted. </p><p>There was no war left in any of them, but Dumbledore was not of their ilk. Mighty of heart, he had not flinched away from bringing to the Castle his successor even if it meant his death. </p><p>This was not a fate Harry wanted for Delphini. Young, without having known a lover's touch, mourning a sweetheart before she had married him, after having borne the brunt of the pandemic, she did not deserve this. </p><p>What would Voldemort say, if he knew?  </p><p>He knew! Harry swore softly. </p><p>Voldemort must have realized the truth, when Delphini had him under her curse at the temple. It was this discovery that had shattered him. He had not Splinched himself. He had gone to the Castle to entreat in vain with the sorcery in stone and earth.   </p><p>"Who knows?" </p><p>"Filius was the first to suspect. He told me of his theory in June. We began to investigate, but little is recorded in extant documentation about how the Castle chooses."</p><p>Flitwick had died in July, leaving Minerva alone with the burden of this secret. </p><p>"Severus must know," she said wearily. "Albus confides in him."</p><p>Snape was Dumbledore's man, through and through. He would not breathe a word of Dumbledore's secrets, even to Minerva. </p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>It was Delphini, making her way to him up the river promenade. She had slept well for once. Her eyes were bright in curiosity as she took in the sights of the city at the confluence of the rivers two.   </p><p>Harry wished Minerva goodbye and tucked his phone back into his coat pocket. </p><p>"I come with food," she said brightly, giving him a stuffed meat flatbread. </p><p>"Is this a hamburger?"</p><p>"It is a pljeskavica!" she exclaimed, horrified.  </p><p>Grinning at the predictable rise he had gotten out of her, he winked and turned to pick at his pljeskavica. Ground pork. The street food they ate on their journey had been flavorful and fresh, but he found it did not hold a candle to Voldemort's culinary gambits. Voldemort had made pljeskavica on a lazy Saturday morning at Swanage. Spiced lamb, Harry remembered.   </p><p>"Dad called me today," she said quietly, as they walked along the promenade together. There were a few joggers, wearing face masks. </p><p>"Was he upset about your motorbike theft?"</p><p>"He was upset," she admitted. "Larceny did not feature heavily among the reasons for his ire." </p><p>If Rose vanished one night, after the death of a loved one, then what she had taken with her would be the least of Ron's worries. Rose and Hugo were still in their parents' basement, safe and sound, even if unemployed and upset with the boomers. </p><p>The youngest who had become Chief Healer at St. Mungo's, the face of the pandemic response, engaged to an up-and-coming politician favored by the Minister. Delphini had been raised in happiness and safety. They had not taught her of war. Hers was a kind nature. She had wept for the war crimes of a madman in love that had left Harry orphaned in a cupboard. She had offered him a pact of peace and forgiveness, wise beyond her years. </p><p>She was not her parents, but she was their child, and the Castle had marked her for her power.   </p><p>An angler, idling at the bank with a line cast, was playing music on his phone. Bob Dylan.  </p><p>
  <em>How does it feel, how does it feel?</em><br/>
<em>To be without a home,</em><br/>
<em>Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone,</em><br/>
<em>Ahh you've gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely.</em>
</p><p>"I am afraid to go back," Delphini said quietly. "As if-" she averted her gaze. "As if I don't belong there anymore. As if I have nothing left."</p><p>The Castle was turning her grief against her. </p><p>Harry looped an arm about her shoulders and dragged her to his side. </p><p>"Your family will not hold anything against you," he promised. "Your father gave up a war for you, Delphini."</p><p>"I am afraid, Harry," she whispered, burying her face in his shoulder. "There is something wrong with me."</p><p>The angler reeled in a carp. </p><p>
  <em>How does it feel, how does it feel?</em><br/>
<em>To be on your own, with no direction home,</em><br/>
<em>Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.</em>
</p><p>Voldemort knew how it felt. He had swiftly bound himself to Abraxas, as a boy. He might have been made insane, but he had been loved, and loneliness had not been his cross to bear until Godric's Hollow. </p><p>Dumbledore knew how it felt. He had bound himself to a Castle. The Castle had cast him aside for the next Headmaster she had chosen. </p><p>Harry knew how it felt. He had known it all his life. As Minerva, he refused to believe that there was an ending to loneliness, that there was an equal in heart to meet his. His yearning had taken a life of its own, as an Obscurus that was snow and bitter gale following him. </p><p>Delphini was a young girl marked by a Castle. She did not know what burdened her, but she was Voldemort's daughter, sensitive to magic even if uneducated in its mysteries, and she recognized there was something amiss in her. </p><p>-------</p><p>That night, as Delphini lay awake in her bed, afraid and alone and small, Harry closed his eyes and tried to center his mind about the dormant magic of the stone. His magic wafted from him, as white smoke curling warm, and enveloped the girl in a clumsy embrace. </p><p>It was not Voldemort's delicate lullaby, but it was of Harry's magic willingly channeled through the stone, and it cradled the girl to sleep. </p><p>Wearied, he shut the door gently and walked outside. Their Vrbo overlooked the river, and he could see the ripples faint painted in the reflected lights of the city.</p><p>Saturn watched him.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, he dialed a number he had memorized. </p><p>"Harry?"</p><p>"Turn your video on?" Harry asked, settling under a tree and balancing the phone on his knees. "I would like to see you."</p><p>"Is that necessary?" </p><p>The exhaustion in Voldemort's voice was threaded thin by fear.</p><p>Harry thought of the postcard Voldemort had sent Minerva from Belgrade. <em>Hold the Line</em>, he had told her, even as he had been losing his sanity and soul, even as he was drinking of grief and despair everyday as he fought to keep Abraxas alive with his magic.  </p><p>"Let me see you, please." </p><p>Voldemort's features betrayed him, giving away the secrets of his fears and his worries, his calculations and his despair. He was in the kitchen, by the bay window. A crack of lightning threw Old Harry Rocks into relief behind him. </p><p>"An ash tree," he said softly, eyes wide in shock. </p><p>Harry looked up. It was an ash tree. Ancient. </p><p>"It must have outlasted a hundred wars," he told Voldemort. </p><p>The trees of Malfoy Manor remembered love's last songs sung under their eaves once. </p><p>"Harry-"</p><p>"Let me show you something," Harry interrupted, before he lost the courage he had scrounged up. He held up his right palm to the camera. </p><p>Voldemort exclaimed in surprise. </p><p>"I have marked you again," he said, and the wretchedness in his voice cut. </p><p>"I drew it from you," Harry corrected him gently, wishing he was at Swanage, so that he might cup Voldemort's cheek and soothe him as he unravelled. </p><p>Voldemort fell silent, mulling over the meaning made clear in Harry's words. </p><p>How had Minerva dared to finally acknowledge that her long years of lonely yearning was over? It ached, and Harry knew only fear, as the ground shifted under him. It was as the pandemic. During most of 2020, he had feared and feared, not seeing an end in sight. And then he had received the vaccine, and a new fear had emerged, for he did not know how to live without the burden of the months before. </p><p>By the riverside, an old man was playing <em>Knocking on Heaven's door</em>. </p><p>Harry's fate had vanished from the paths of the stars. It had vanished from the lines of his palms. </p><p>His heart had waited, blank and impatient, until he had come to Swanage. There it had surrendered, long before Harry had seen its will, and on his palms were drawn lines of truth. </p><p>"You know the Castle's choice," Voldemort stated, meeting Harry's gaze boldly despite the vulnerability incandescent in him. "Is this your pity?" </p><p>The cleverest fool there was, Dumbledore had called Voldemort. Voldemort had swiftly determined that Harry knew Delphini's fate. He had leapt to conclusions from there, seeing Harry's offering as motivated by charity. </p><p>"I wish I could see you," he said softly. </p><p>Voldemort knew what he meant. With a sigh, he said, "I am relieved that you cannot."</p><p>"Tell me, please." </p><p>Another would have refused plainly. Harry would not have held a refusal against Voldemort. He knew that he would not be able to reciprocate, if asked in turn. Voldemort would not ask for reciprocation, Harry knew. Measure for measure was not the make of Voldemort's heart. </p><p>"It may not work," Voldemort murmured, as he cast a spell on himself. </p><p>The magic of him rose vibrant as the rainbows made by the strobe lights in Delphini's anteroom where they had had the vaccine after-party on New Year's Eve. The red of holly cut jubilant streaks on evergreen, taking and taking and taking, flush in conquest's fierce glory.    </p><p><em>My heart is a brave and wild thing</em>, Harry realized, as Voldemort met him unflinching, despite all that he had to lose, despite the price he had once paid for love.   </p><p>"You are my choice," Harry vowed, sealing will to will. </p><p>Beneath an ash tree, at the confluence of rivers, in a city that had been razed to the ground again and again only to hold the line and rise fierce once more, under Saturn's bright, Harry chose.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you are new to my writing, thank you for taking a chance on Pandemic. If you have sailed with me before, welcome back. </p><p>We will meander our way to a safe and warm place in the next chapters. </p><p>Hold on. Hold the line.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Bad moon rising</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>May 2021,</em><br/>
<em>Bratislava</em>
</p><p>Harry meandered through the Medical Gardens of the University of Comenius, looking for a quiet bench. </p><p>Due to the pandemic, all the cafes and restaurants were closed. There were a few couples walking together, enjoying the spring morning. In Muggle E.U., the vaccinations were delayed by a few months, he had heard from Hermione and Ron. </p><p>Delphini had detoured to the Tesco across the gardens, to restock their traveling supplies. She had become antsier over the weeks, fearing to return. Under her skin crawled a call that she was frightened of, the call of the Castle. </p><p>Harry had not had the heart to tell her yet what her restlessness meant. She was in mourning for the boy. She was terrified of the reception she might receive from her family. Guilt wracked her. She castigated herself for abandoning her colleagues and her country in the middle of a pandemic. She continued to repress her self-recrimination for what she had done to her father, but Harry could see the living remorse in her. She had at least begun speaking regularly to Rodolphus, Draco, and Scorpius, first sticking to text messages, and then bravely venturing to video calls. The conversations had brought to her a semblance of normality.   </p><p>Finding a quiet bench, with not a living soul in sight, he cast privacy spells and called Dumbledore. </p><p>"Bratislava!" The Headmaster exclaimed.</p><p>"Have you visited?" </p><p>"A long time ago," Dumbledore replied. The chagrin on his face was honest in self-deprecation. "A mistake."</p><p>A mistake, in the pursuit of the One. Harry knew well what Dumbledore's guilt was. He knew too, that Dumbledore had given up every joy of his life for the sake of others. </p><p>"You visited Grindelwald," he said softly. </p><p>"Yes. A rendezvous in 1938, at the Blue Church," Dumbledore sighed. "We had been in the habit of liaising discreetly in European cities. Nobody knew. I had not told even my brother, for I wanted him to think me a better man than I am."</p><p>"You are the most selfless man I know," Harry replied sharply. It was the truth. </p><p>"If I were selfless, Harry, I would have gifted him the death he begged of me," Dumbledore murmured; the shattered heart of his was a bleak and wretched thing reflected plain in every living line of him.  </p><p>Voldemort had done everything in his power to ensure that Abraxas survived him. Dumbledore had done everything in his power to ensure that Grindelwald was not awarded capital punishment. </p><p>Dumbledore believed in euthanasia. He had stood aside when Firenze had made ready to die. He had not been able to give Grindelwald the death he had sought. Had he had any confidantes in the years that followed, to speak of his grief? He had Snape and Minerva and Aberforth, but Harry knew that Dumbledore valued their friendship and esteem too highly to risk condemnation. </p><p>"Tell me about him," he asked gently. </p><p>"The Minister of Loneliness tending to his folk?" Dumbledore asked. </p><p>The tender gratitude and hope in his voice cut. Nobody had offered to listen before, Harry realized, and he despised this world that had left them to live and die in loneliness.</p><p>In the quiet of the park, with only birdsong to accompany him, Harry pulled up his legs on the bench and propped his phone on his knees. </p><p>"My mistakes-"</p><p>"<em>Whom, spirit fair, thy spells did bind, to fear himself, and love all human kind,</em>" Harry interrupted.</p><p>Dumbledore feared himself, even as he loved all outside him.</p><p>"You remembered the poetry," Dumbledore said, startled, pleased, touched. "Harry, my dear boy!" </p><p>"I have forty minutes to devote to poetry reading everyday, while Delphini takes her long showers," Harry said. </p><p>It was Shelley. It was the poetry Dumbledore had read to him before the New Year, when Harry's Obscurus had been slipping free from form's containment. <em>A Christmas tradition</em>, Dumbledore had said then. Harry had known instinctively that the poetry was read in remembrance of Grindelwald. </p><p>"There was no love after 1899, or so I held," Dumbledore said abruptly, turning away from the camera to look at the spindly glass instruments on his desk. "He came, every time I sent for him. He called me his lover, even if I portrayed our arrangement as a matter of convenience. "<em>You and I are not lovers"</em>, I told him in 1941,  when Europe was drenched in blood. I did not see him again until the duel. <em>Albus, please</em>, he begged me, this proud man who had never begged before. The jury was hung, you see, and I held the tie-breaking vote on his fate. Death? Or lifelong imprisonment? He begged me for death." </p><p>"I could not-" Dumbledore shook his head wearily. Fawkes came to him, and trilled a merry jazz tune. </p><p>"The Kirby Jazz Sextet's <em>Sugar Plum Fairy</em>," Dumbledore said, with a faint smile. "Fawkes has become quite the connoisseur of jazz, hasn't he? Gellert introduced me to Jazz, after his trip to the Americas. I had often complained to him how staid classical music was. When he heard Jazz interpretations of classical music for the first time, it reminded him of me."</p><p>Dumbledore's quirky brilliance and originality remained unmatched.     </p><p><em>Love Potion No. 9</em> played at Swanage often. It had been Abraxas's favorite. </p><p><em>Hold the Line</em> was Minerva's favorite song that she played on the gramophone in her rooms at Hogwarts. </p><p>And Dumbledore's Spotify playlists had many songs from the Kirby Sextet on regular, heavy rotation, including their jazz interpretation of <em>Sugar Plum Fairy</em>. </p><p>"How is the girl faring?" Dumbledore asked softly, shifting from vulnerability to pragmatism. </p><p>"She is not ready," Harry said. "She is not ready for any of this." </p><p>The steel in his voice surprised him, though Dumbledore betrayed no sign of shock. </p><p>"Perhaps in twenty years-" Harry begged. </p><p>He was not ready to see Delphini throw away her life in the early blossom of youth. He was not ready for Dumbledore's death. </p><p>"Tom came here," Dumbledore interrupted. "He implored the Castle to take him in his daughter's stead." </p><p>The Castle was willful. She demanded absolute fealty. Voldemort had chosen another over her long ago. </p><p>"How long?"  </p><p>"A matter of months, Harry," Dumbledore said apologetically. </p><p>A matter of months. Harry wanted to fly to Hogwarts, to be with Dumbledore. </p><p>"It is important that you protect the girl," Dumbledore cautioned, knowing Harry's impulse. "Her safety is paramount, Harry."</p><p>"And her happiness," Harry wished desperately. </p><p>"And her happiness," Dumbledore acknowledged, sadness flickering across his features. </p><p>These days of travel, in the middle of a pandemic, through deserted towns and cities, may be Delphini's last adventure before the Castle claimed her. Little wonder why neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort had insisted that they return. </p><p>She had come to Hogwarts, in the November of 2019, and she had not known a moment's grace since. </p><p>------</p><p>The <em>Bryndzové halušky</em> that they dined on, left at their Vrbo door by an Uber Eats driver, compared poorly to Voldemort's version. </p><p>"It is to do with the sheep's cheese," Delphini muttered. "Papa sources his from Welsh farms. The Welsh know their sheep."</p><p>"Some would say that the Welsh know their sheep too well," Harry quipped, and grinned at the bright and helpless laughter his words tickled from her. </p><p>Oh, it was good to see the dear thing merry. Guilt and mourning overwhelmed her immediately, and she returned to solemnity. </p><p>"Nat hated Papa's cooking whenever he had dinner at Swanage," she whispered, fiddling with the glass of beer Harry had poured for her. "He put up with it, though, for my sake."</p><p>Nat, during their work at C.R.U.P. had been one for toasties. He prized efficiency over elaboration. Voldemort, no doubt in a bid to endear himself to his daughter's sweetheart, must have gone all out to impress the boy with culinary marvels. Harry knew well how Voldemort preferred to speak in acts of service than in words. </p><p>"Nat knew Papa tried his best," Delphini continued. "When he proposed the first time, I said no, because I was afraid he would not want me if he knew the truth of my paternity."</p><p>"Papa-" she cleared his throat. "Papa went to Nat's flat. He explained everything. It took Nat months to come to terms with what my family had done."</p><p>The boy had come back to her. These children had not been raised to hate.</p><p>Voldemort was reserved by nature. While he affected a facade of charm for audiences, away from the public eye, he was introverted and withdrawn. What had it cost him to go to a boy of seventeen or eighteen, and to recount his past?   </p><p>"Nat understood," she said. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Nat understood that Papa lived for me."</p><p>She was Voldemort's weakness. She was Voldemort's fate, the one he had not chosen. Nat had not sought to exploit this truth. Many in his place would have, to bring a powerful wizard to heel at their whim.</p><p>"You chose him," she went on, fixing her gaze on Harry with eerie intensity, reminding him of the tale of the Gorgon of the Aegean Sea.</p><p>"I chose him," he replied steadily, raising his glass of beer. </p><p>"The One, then," she murmured, voice cracking on the words. </p><p>Goodwill and happiness, tinged by jealousy. She had lost hers, when Harry had found his.  </p><p>"Not for him."</p><p>It was the first time he had admitted that to another. Perhaps, Harry mused, that had been at the root of his denial all along, despite his heart's decision. He had wanted to be the first and the last, the <em>One</em>, to another. Delphini's jealousy, oddly, encouraged him to confront the truth stuck in his maw. </p><p>"If you think Papa <em>settled</em>-" she shook her head, disbelieving. "Harry, Harry, you are so thick!"   </p><p>"Didn't you wish to see the full moon over the river? Come along," he said, changing the subject. </p><p>They walked together by the Danube. There were a group of young American tourists drinking by the promenade, flouting the local mask mandates. They must be freshly vaccinated thanks to the rapid vaccination programme the new administration had embarked on.  They were playing Credence Clearwater Revival. </p><p>A handsome, strapping youth, pearly-teethed and blue-eyed and tanned, stepped forward. He grinned at Harry and invited them to beers. Harry was about to politely decline, when he noticed Delphini's wide-eyed curiosity. </p><p>"Thank you," he said, and Delphini smiled for the first time in months. </p><p>"Mark," the boy introduced himself. "I am from Wisconsin." </p><p>Wisconsin. Somewhere in America. Harry admired the American spirit of exceptionalism, as a matter of rule. They expected anyone and everyone to be knowledgeable about their country. He was still in the habit of introducing himself as Harry from Aberdeen in Scotland of the United Kingdom. </p><p>"Harry," he offered. </p><p>"Delphini." </p><p>"What a unique name!" Mark said brightly, with the exuberance characteristic to his countrymen. Before the pandemic, before Nat's death, Delphini's irrepressible cheer could have easily passed her off as American.  </p><p><em>I see the bad moon a-rising,</em><br/>
<em>I see trouble on the way,</em><br/>
<em>I see earthquakes and lightning,</em><br/>
<em>I see bad times today</em> </p><p>Mark mouthed along with the familiar lyrics. Delphini grinned at him and joined. </p><p>"You know the song!" Mark exclaimed. </p><p>"Dance?" she asked bravely. </p><p>She was in her pajamas and Harry's jacket, hardly dancing attire, but the American youth she danced with did not care. The boy was used to clubbing, Harry could tell, from the easy sashay of his hips. Delphini must not have seen the outside of a club. She moved lightly, but it was the dance of an older era. </p><p>"You have studied dancing, haven't you?" </p><p>"Papa taught me." </p><p>Harry stood by the river, making smalltalk with the boy's family. Against the Danube, in moonshine and laughter, Delphini danced unwitting of the fate that hunted her.  Overwhelmed by the innocence that remained in her, he took a photo with his iPhone. </p><p>
  <em>There's a bad moon on the rise</em><br/>
<em>I hear hurricanes a-blowing, I know the end is coming soon</em><br/>
<em>I fear rivers over flowing, I hear the voice of rage and ruin</em>
</p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>Delphini came running to him, bidding a hasty goodbye to the American boy, face split wide by a grin, sweat beaded on her brow from exertion. </p><p><em>Remember this night</em>, he wanted to tell her. </p><p>Instead, he took her arm in his, and they walked by the Danube arguing about whether Creedence Clearwater Revival deserved the Fogerty brothers. </p><p>------</p><p>"She looks well," Voldemort said, when Harry called after Delphini had gone to bed. "Is that the Carpathians in the background?" </p><p>Harry had climbed up the rickety stairs of the clocktower, to get decent reception. </p><p>"Yes, you can see the Forest park in the foothills from here," Harry remarked. </p><p>Delphini liked Google Maps, but Harry had fallen in love with the detailed Lonely Planet city guides they picked up on their travels. He had kept them all, because Ron loved coffee-table travel books. </p><p>"Thank you for sending me the picture."</p><p>"There are good days and bad days," Harry admitted. "This was the happiest I have seen her since that day. I had to snap a photo."  </p><p>Swanage did not have any photographs of Delphini, he recollected. </p><p>Before Nat's death, she had incessantly spammed Harry with selfies of funny-faces. She had tried her best to convince him to get on Tiktok. He had already had to deal with a dozen messaging apps thanks to Snape's refusal to buy into the Apple ecosystem. He had managed to stay out of social media all these years, and he refused to begin with Tiktok. Had she sent her selfies to her family too?  <br/>
 <br/>
"Bella has albums." </p><p>"You don't." </p><p>"I was once a favourite of photographers," Voldemort said. "Abraxas would invite the Penns, the Avendons, and the Cartier-Bressons of the world. He failed to realise-" he paused. "He failed to realise that the photographers came looking for the grotesque where once they had found beauty."</p><p>Abraxas had loved Voldemort, through it all. He had not noticed the transformation of Voldemort's physique, as soul and sanity and magic unravelled.  </p><p>"It is all right," Harry said gently. </p><p>Voldemort looked surprised by his attempt to offer comfort. It was then that Harry realized how little they had discussed their attraction. When Harry dated using the apps or by stirring the wishing pot, his potential date and he would quickly list their preferences to see if they <em>clicked</em>. Height, weight, age, smoking, drugs, drinking, desirable qualities, deal-breakers.   </p><p>It had been easy at Swanage, in their domesticity, to shift seamlessly through the definition and the redefinition of their rapport, until they had wound up in bed as a distraction until pandemic's end. </p><p>The pandemic had ended, for the two of them, on New Year's Eve. They had parted then, Harry to find the One, and Voldemort to his quiet solitude. </p><p>Five months later, Harry was on the Continent with a flying motorbike and a girl running away from grief and fate hounding her footsteps. </p><p>He had chosen, and the choice mantled his every waking thought with a heaviness of its own that he did not know to lessen. He had learned to long for what was out of his reach. He had not learned to accept what was finally given unto him. </p><p>He had to try. He had to try, because Voldemort would not know where to begin.  First, he would emphasize exclusivity. </p><p>"I deleted the dating apps," he began. "If you wished to know."</p><p>The resolution of the video was terrible, but Harry could see Voldemort's amusement plain. </p><p>"What is it?" he demanded grumpily. He was making an effort!</p><p>"After your decision in Belgrade, I had taken you at your word, Harry." </p><p>That left Harry silenced. He had read many dating blogs. The exclusivity conversation was about monogamy and deciding to delete dating apps. Voldemort had taken his half-baked confession at face-value. What was he to say after this? </p><p>"No trips to Bonn, then?" he enquired, and hated how his mind had immediately leapt to that subject.</p><p>"No," Voldemort said pleasantly. The bright glint of merriment in his gaze was irksome. </p><p>In for a penny, in for a pound. He was burning in curiosity to know.</p><p>"What did you do in Bonn?"  </p><p>That earned him laughter. </p><p>"What <em>could</em> I do in Bonn?" Voldemort wondered, and the hitch in his voice was both amusement and mortification. </p><p>Now that Harry pondered the matter, he could see what was unlikely to have happened in those transactions. If Hermione and Ron, master-labelers of sexuality that they were, had analysed Voldemort, they would have categorized him somewhere upon the spectrum of demisexuality.  Familiarity and a level of trust had marked his sexual relationships, first with Abraxas, and then with Harry. </p><p>And then, before Voldemort spoke, Harry knew what must have been the transaction's nature. Voldemort was touch-starved, and touch remained the easiest means to unravel him. Hermione had asked Harry to go to a whorehouse to decouple his sexual wants from his emotional wants. </p><p>"I hired a boy to hold me through the night, every year for my birthday."</p><p>As Abraxas had once held him.  </p><p>Harry had gone about this the wrong way. Voldemort was willing to give himself in vulnerability and surrender, in confession of word and skin. </p><p>Voldemort had given Delphini the truth of him when she had been a child, risking her loathing. He had gone to Nat Rosier to tell him of their family's past, for her sake. He had freely told Harry of Delphini's conception, because the girl had wanted to befriend Harry, and Voldemort had not wanted her thought of as a child of adultery. He may shirk away from garrulousness or pleasantries, and he was awkward in his introversion, but he was unflinchingly prepared to expose the soft and broken pieces of him in trust. </p><p>Harry was unsure he could meet Voldemort in equal honesty, to speak of the ugly and desperate parts in him. He had not understood before, because he had expected declarations and brouhaha to precede each stage. As on social media, where they moved through mutually agreed upon <em>situationship </em>stages, from dating to exclusive to complicated to engaged to married.   </p><p>"I have had four hundred and fifty meals since New Year's Eve," Harry offered clumsily. "Not one has held a candle to anything you have made."</p><p>"Oh," Voldemort fell silent, and Harry could see the bright and surprised pleasure at the compliment. </p><p>For a first attempt at emotional expressiveness, perhaps it was not too poor, Harry mused. He was learning to speak a new language, but he was determined to get it right this time.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Nuremberg</em><br/>
<em>May 2021</em>
</p><p><br/>
Delphini was quiet as they walked with the audioguides loaded on their phones through the streets of Nuremberg. Here, the Allies had conducted the trials for the Nazis after the Second World War. </p><p>She was thinking of the two Wizarding Wars, he knew. She was contemplating the Wall that had ended the bloodshed, and of how her father had given up his cause for her.</p><p>Harry attempted to redirect her attention to the Fleisch Bridge upon the River Pegnitz, standing strong from the late 1500s, through war and truce and technology's march. </p><p>"It is an old bridge, Harry."</p><p>Ha! This was where his Lonely Planet studies came in handy. </p><p>"Can you read the inscription?" </p><p>"It is in Latin," she muttered. </p><p>"What <em>did</em> they teach you?" Harry teased her. </p><p>"Omnia habent ortus suaque in crementa sed ecce quem cernis nunquam bos fuit hic Vitulus."</p><p>Her enunciation was crisp and the words rolled easy off her tongue. So she knew Latin then. </p><p>"All things have a beginning and grow, but the ox upon whom you now look was never a calf," she translated. Seeing his intent, she turned to him with a faint smile. </p><p>"What hasn't this bridge seen?" Harry asked her. "Lovers and armies, beggars and thieves, fishermen and whores, what hasn't this bridge seen?" </p><p>"It has outlasted pandemics and wars," she concurred softly. "It is as the stars. They have witnessed all, and we look to them, generation after generation, with dreams in our eyes." </p><p>"Draco used to tell Scorpius and me that we have a choice when we are knelt in the dirt. We can look down and fix our eyes on the earth, or we can look up and behold the stars. <em>You are a Black</em>, he would tell us<em>. Look up, and know the stars</em>." </p><p>This world, where Draco had raised children without war's taint. </p><p>"It gets better," Harry promised her. </p><p>Sighing, she hugged him, impulsive and overwhelmed, young and lost, and the Obscurus in him coiled about her in warm embrace. She did not flinch away, brave and trusting thing that she was.  </p><p>He took off her headphones and his own. They did not need to remember the griefs of their world's past this day.</p><p>"Bretzels?" he asked her. </p><p>"Rotbier?" </p><p>"Oh, you have become an alcoholic sprog," he rued, dragging her along to arrange a picnic of bretzels and beer by the river in the late May sunshine. </p><p>"I consider it part of my cultural education!" she exclaimed. "Papa doesn't drink socially. I think he gets sloshed on vodka sometimes, when he is alone, because I see the bottles vanish. Aunt Narcissa and Draco are sherry fanciers. And Mum! Mum guzzles those FGDs!" </p><p>"FGDs?" </p><p>"Fruity, girly drinks! Pina coladas!"</p><p>Oddly, this fit Harry's picture of Bellatrix; a pina colada in one hand, and a Crucio in the other. </p><p>-----</p><p>Hermione was shouting to make herself heard over the blaring loudspeakers Hugo was playing music over. </p><p><em>Then came the last day of May</em>, by the Blue Öyster Cult. </p><p>
  <em>They're okay the last days of May</em><br/>
<em>But I'll be breathing dry air</em><br/>
<em>I'm leaving soon</em><br/>
<em>The others are already there</em>
</p><p>"He has become an excellent percussionist," Harry offered.</p><p>"That song does not require drums!" Hermione complained. "I bought him a ukulele so that I can nap in peace during the afternoons! Oh, Harry, I cannot wait until the two of them are out of the house!"</p><p>"Not in your backyard?"</p><p>"Not in my bloody basement!" she sighed. "Are you really in Nuremberg?" </p><p>"Yes, just as I had been really in Belgrade, and in Bratislava, and Farsala, and Thessaloniki," he teased. She scowled at him. </p><p>"I have not even gone to the Costco in more than a year, Harry," she muttered. </p><p>"The vaccination potions are next week, Ron said." </p><p>"Yes!" she said, with a portentous sigh of relief. "I am throwing them out of my house after that."</p><p>"My flat in Aberdeen is empty," Harry suggested. "Hugo could flat-sit, Hermione. Then you can nap in peace without percussionary nightmares." </p><p>"Oh, Harry!" She rubbed her hands in glee. Then she frowned, and demanded, "When are you returning? Severus said that you will be back in a few days."</p><p>Snape, pulling fiction out of his arse. </p><p>"When she is ready to go back," Harry replied honestly. </p><p>"You are enjoying it, aren't you?" Hermione asked, perceptive as ever when it came to him. "You like ferrying her from city to city, plying her with liquor and sight-seeing and sweets. The last time I saw you so engaged in an enterprise was when you took Rose and Hugo to the roller coasters."</p><p>Ron and Hermione were scared of roller coasters and Ferris wheels, prone to vertigo as they were. Harry, who had risked his life in unnumbered ways by then, had no fear left. So he had been the one to take Rose and Hugo on the thrill-rides. He had taken them multiple times during their summer vacations to the Codonas Amusement Park in Aberdeen. </p><p>It had been a tradition that had lasted a decade, before Rose and Hugo had outgrown the amusement park attractions. Ron and Hermione would go off to the Highlands for a well-deserved vacation. Harry would host the children at his flat until they returned, and take them to the rides. </p><p>He had not made the association. Hermione, clever beast that she was, had seen the similarity. </p><p>"Delphini is of drinking age. And she can cut my heart out with a spoon if she wished," he said defensively, unwilling to let Hermione relish in her smugness once again. </p><p>"With a spoon? Why with a spoon?"</p><p>"Never mind that now, Hermione!" <br/>
 <br/>
"It is a good line. I am stealing it for my next story."</p><p>He groaned. </p><p>"How is she?" Hermione asked solemnly then. "To have lost a fiancé months before the wedding! After the year she has had during the pandemic! Poor thing! Does she have any emotional support from her family? Oh, Harry, is that why she ran away with you? Doesn't she have anyone she can speak to?" </p><p>Then, being generous as only she could be, Hermione said, "You can give her my phone number, Harry, if you think she could benefit from speaking to another woman."</p><p>"I will let her know," he promised Hermione. </p><p>Contemplating how Bellatrix might comfort her daughter left Harry with a headache. That bitch had two modes: crazy and crazier. Delphini was close to Narcissa. Perhaps that served. </p><p>From what he had gleaned of Delphini's childhood, Draco had been her most traditional parental influence. Draco had been raised by Lucius and Wallis in Belfast, and perhaps was the well-adjusted one of their lot. The girl had been raised in a happy household, despite the unconventionality of their parental arrangements. </p><p>----</p><p>"Harry?" Delphini asked that night, as she was towel-drying her hair with a limp grey towel that was a sorry cousin to her fluffy monstrosity at Swanage.</p><p>She turned her nose up at drying spells and dryers, complaining that they made her hair frizzy. </p><p>"Yes?" </p><p>"Would it be tacky to get matching tattoos?"</p><p>"Unquestionably." </p><p>"What about friendship bracelets?"</p><p>"Tackier. May I remind you that I wear your stone as an Obscurus containment chain about my neck?"</p><p>"If that isn't the tackiest," she muttered. </p><p>He laughed and went to towel her hair dry for her. </p><p>"Papa does this for me." </p><p>Her eyes were red in the mirror's reflection. Had she been crying in the shower again?</p><p>"I miss him, Harry."</p><p>"Are you ready to return?" he asked her gently. </p><p>"Will he-"</p><p>"He misses you badly. There will be potatoes in everything he cooks for months to come."</p><p>----------</p><p>Later, as Harry nipped out of his shower, he saw twelve missed calls on Facetime.</p><p>Voldemort picked up on the first ring, and turned the video on without prompting. </p><p>"Is everything all right?" Harry asked, alarmed. </p><p>"Thank you," Voldemort said plainly. </p><p>"She called you." </p><p>Voldemort nodded. The naked happiness he wore was evident in every inch of him Harry could see. <br/>
  <br/>
"She-" he cleared his throat. "She apologised."</p><p>For the curse. Sixteen minutes. How vividly Harry remembered the tears of blood wept on cracked stone under Saturn's bright! The scene haunted his nightmares.</p><p>"I don't understand how she was born of me," Voldemort said quietly. </p><p>As deeply as Harry loathed Bellatrix, it came down to one thing in the end. Delphini had not been raised in a cupboard or an orphanage, in times of war. </p><p>"She was raised in love," he reminded Voldemort. "How could she have turned out otherwise?" </p><p>"It is her birthday on the thirteenth of June," Voldemort told him. "Bella and Rodolphus celebrate it at their home, and invite the family. However, the eve has traditionally been just the two of us at Swanage."</p><p>"I will bring her back on the twelfth, then," Harry promised. </p><p>"I mean to tell her about the Castle."</p><p>Harry wondered if it was wise to tell her about the Castle before her birthday celebrations. It had waited long enough. It could wait until after her birthday.  </p><p>"I am aware that I lack the sensitivity to ascertain timing and word choice for these conversations," Voldemort continued. "Will you be there?" </p><p>"You wish-" Harry trailed off, surprised. He had not expected to be invited to her birthday dinner at Swanage, not when it had been traditionally a venue of two, of father and daughter. </p><p>"I can't say I am good at these conversations," he managed to reply. </p><p>"Then we can be clumsy together," Voldemort said. "She will want you there. You have become her constant. And I would like you to stay."</p><p>"Missed me, have you?" Harry asked, covering happy bashfulness with braggadocio. </p><p>"Yes," Voldemort replied honestly. "I have missed you."</p><p>Emotional expressiveness, Harry grumbled to himself. In for a penny, in for a pound.</p><p>"I have missed you," he offered his truth.</p><p>Twenty minutes earlier, he had been wanking in the shower thinking of the man. It was a little late for playing coy.  </p><p>"It must be the peccary," Voldemort riposted. </p><p>"No, I wanted to strip you beneath the Water Supply obelisk by the bay, and suck you off on the coastal meadows."</p><p>Voldemort had been sipping at tea. His cup crashed with a clatter on the kitchen table, and he leapt back before the hot tea could splash down his front. The video blacked out.</p><p>Harry received a text soon after.</p><p>"That spelled the death of my iPad." </p><p>"Sell a bitcoin, buy a few iPads," Harry typed back. "I mean to say a great many things to you on this matter." </p><p>For good measure, he added a wink emoji. Eggplant? He frowned. What was the worst that could happen? Voldemort was a sure thing. Harry's terrible emoji-game would not change that. The epiphany made him fiercely happy. Eggplant emoji too.</p><p>He did not get a reply.  </p><p>Satisfied, he went to bed grinning.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dunkirk, </em><br/>
<em>June 2021. </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"The white cliffs of Dover," Harry said quietly.</p><p>Delphini leaned her head on Harry's shoulder, as they stood on Dunkirk beach at midnight, looking across the still waters of the Strait to their homeland beyond. </p><p>"<em>The sea is calm to-night,</em><br/>
<em>The tide is full, the moon lies fair</em><br/>
<em>Upon the straits;—on the French coast, the light</em><br/>
<em>Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,</em><br/>
<em>Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.</em>"</p><p>Delphini recited the verses. Harry knew it too. <em>Dover Beach</em> was one of Dumbledore's favorites. </p><p>The last day of their trip.</p><p>"Are you ready?" Delphini asked him. </p><p>He was a new man, going to a new life, that brimmed full of dreams and fears unknown. He had left Scotland alone, yearning for the One. </p><p>"From the Aegean to the North Sea," he reminisced. </p><p>They had crossed mountain and plain, walked by the mighty rivers of the Continent, until they were stood upon Dunkirk's sands, mere miles across from the cliffs of Dover. </p><p>What hadn't changed in the interim? When they crossed the Strait, when they arrived at Swanage, Voldemort would tell Delphini about the Castle. Harry had silently resolved to be there for her, on the other side of the Wall, when she was ensconced in a Castle cut off from her family.  </p><p>"From the Aegean to the North Sea," Delphini concurred. "Just like the poem."</p><p><em>Begin, and cease, and then again begin,</em><br/>
<em>With tremulous cadence slow, and bring</em><br/>
<em>The eternal note of sadness in.</em><br/>
<em>Sophocles long ago heard it on the Aegean.</em> </p><p>"There!" Delphini exclaimed, grabbing Harry's hand in hers and pointing at the far horizon. "Oh, look Harry!" </p><p>The Aurora.  </p><p>Coiling swirls in blue and green, it kissed the skies blinding bright in its iridescence. The striking sight reminded Harry of how the Castle was bound in sweeps of Voldemort's evergreen barricaded by the mighty azure walls of Dumbledore's magic. </p><p>He tugged the girl closer to him as they watched the sky's lights dance at horizon's verge. </p><p>"Together?" </p><p>This girl who had come to him with a pact of peace and forgiveness, this girl who had clung to him when he shifted from man to mindless power, this girl who trusted him to tend to her through her mourning's wake.</p><p>"Together," he promised, kissing her brow. </p><p>------</p><p>They walked back from the beach to their Vrbo, munching on the Belgian frites popular in the street stalls of Dunkirk due to their old Flemish roots. Many were not wearing masks. Both the Muggle and the Wizarding worlds had reopened.</p><p>"I fear that a new strain will return us to the beginning," Delphini confided. </p><p>"No doomsday theories today," he warned her. </p><p>"I cannot wait to get a haircut!" she said brightly. "My last haircut was two years ago, Harry. It feels as if the world is waking up." </p><p>As if the world is waking up, he thought. He had feared the end of the pandemic, on New Year's Eve, because it had meant that he would continue in loneliness while the others partied and celebrated together with their lovers and families.</p><p>Half a year later, he was content. </p><p>"I shan't say no to a tattoo," he said, full of goodwill, as they passed a closed tattoo parlor. </p><p>Laughing, Delphini went to the shop-window, to peer at the trading hours. Then she screamed as a hand emerged through the window and caught her by the neck with a wand pressed to her throat. </p><p>"A skull and a serpent perhaps, Miss?" </p><p>Aurors, Harry realized, as hooded figures came to ring him. The sure step they had betrayed Auror training. <em>Renegade</em> Aurors. </p><p>"Harry-" </p><p>"You could fight us, Potter. How far do you think you will get?"</p><p>It did not matter, not while they had her. </p><p>"Drop your wand." </p><p>Renegade Aurors. Were they the same faction who had attempted to kidnap and murder the girl by the Tweed, in Galashiels? He needed to warn Dumbledore. </p><p>"Expecto-" </p><p>Delphini screamed as a cutting curse lopped off her ring finger, with its burden of mourning's gold. </p><p>"We will rip out her pretty tongue next!" The tall man who had his wand at Delphini's throat barked. "Drop your wand." </p><p>-------</p><p>It was cold and damp, and the winds were fierce. They shoved him into a cell and the door shut with a clang. He heard Delphini being dragged near. </p><p>Someone cast a spell to remove the obscuring charm that had been placed on him. There were scratches on the stones, as if a dog had scuffed at the walls in vain. There were marks of canine teeth on the bars. </p><p>Sirius's cell. </p><p>A man Harry recognized came forward. The Head of the Aurors. </p><p>"Rufus!" </p><p>"Hello Harry," Rufus walked forward until his nose was pressed to the bars of Harry's cell. "We had to arrest you for fraternization with the biomagical terrorist who infected the Minister."</p><p>"You believe that?" </p><p>Rufus was the sensible sort! He was also the politically ambitious sort, Harry remembered a moment later. A coup!</p><p>"I wish to speak to Dumbledore!"</p><p>"Dumbledore is not in the country," Rufus said, grinning. </p><p>In his acquaintance of the man, Harry had never seen the man crack a smile before.</p><p>"Minerva! Snape!" Harry gritted his teeth. "You cannot throw us in here, Rufus. I am a <em>citizen</em>. I have rights! She is from a country we have an extradition clause with. Have you notified Griselda's government? You brought us here from foreign soil, without warrant or just cause!" </p><p>"You are free to go, if you insist. The girl remains," Rufus said politely. "Will you leave the girl to rot here, at the mercy of ruthless men and Dementors? She is a waif. I can't imagine her providing them sport as her mother did once." </p><p>Delphini was in the cell across Harry's, eyes wide in horror, clammy-faced and trembling. </p><p>"It was your mother's old cell," Rufus told her. "You can see the marks of her nails on the walls. She was a fierce woman once, all spite and fury, promising us that Voldemort would rise again. Azkaban broke her, as it broke everyone else who came here. Meek as a mouse she became, by the end."</p><p>Delphini had cupped her hands to her mouth, cowering in the farthest corner of the cell away from Rufus.   </p><p>"What price will Lord Voldemort pay for his daughter, I wonder?" Rufus mused.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Hoist the colours</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Events occur.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>June 13, 2021</p><p> </p><p>He woke abruptly, heart thudding staccato. </p><p>The crackling of the torches, the pound of the waves against high stonewalls, the tolling of the tower's bells in the gale, and the faint tuneless singing of the girl he meant to protect. </p><p>
  <em>"Yo ho, haul together</em><br/>
<em>Hoist the colours high"</em>
</p><p>He crawled to the bars. Her form was a thin painted shadow in her mother's old cell, and she had her cheek pressed to the bars she was slouched against. She reminded him of her father then, of how Voldemort had once sat by the kitchen window at Swanage, fearing for his daughter's life as she remained on the frontline of a pandemic. </p><p>The girl had nothing in her of her parents, Harry had once held, and there she was, in Azkaban's cold dark, wearing her fears as plainly as Voldemort had worn his at Swanage. </p><p>"Pirates of the Caribbean?"</p><p>"Yes," she said softly. "When we were young, Scorpius and I would play Will and Elizabeth, in a game of make-believe. Draco was our Captain Jack Sparrow. He took us sailing in Swanage Bay often, and would painstakingly learn his lines so that he may entertain us."</p><p>Once, Harry would have found it impossible to imagine Draco playacting the colorful and camp Captain Sparrow. The steel in him, hewn of war, had obliterated the insecure and petty boy he had been once. Harry suspected that Draco no longer compared himself to anyone else or vied to seek the validation of his family. </p><p>Scorpius had begged Harry for an autograph and had stared at him agog in hero-worship. Delphini had sought his forgiveness for her family's crimes. </p><p>As Ron and Hermione, Draco had not raised the children to hate.</p><p>"Elizabeth Swann was my favourite," Delphini admitted. "I wanted to be like her."</p><p>"You led us through a pandemic," Harry reminded her. </p><p>She shook her head, miserable, wracked by guilt. The cold that curled unto them was of sentient make. Dementors, drawn by her sorrow. </p><p>Harry did not want to alarm the girl. So he sang, to distract her from the sombre musings that she lingered on. </p><p><em>Yo ho, haul together</em><br/>
<em>Hoist the colors high</em><br/>
<em>Heave ho, thieves and beggars</em><br/>
<em>Never shall we die</em> </p><p>He affected Barbossa's accent and Delphini began laughing. In the wake of this human sorcery of mirth and song, the cold retreated. </p><p>It would be back, Harry knew. </p><p>Was it a military coup devised by the Aurors led by Rufus? What had happened to Fudge? Why had Dumbledore left the country? They had not made it to Swanage. Voldemort must have sounded the alarms. </p><p>Harry merely needed to hold the line, until help arrived. </p><p>"Poppet?" he called Delphini, mimicking Captain Barbossa's dulcet tones.</p><p>Her laughter was his heart's ease in that grim lair of stone and sea.   <br/>
 <br/>
He frowned as he heard the clatter approaching. Ministry-issued Auror boots. And a woman. Heels. He had heard it before. Before he could place it, a silent, sepulchral, stinging cold pervaded.  </p><p>"Harry?" Delphini asked, frightened. </p><p>She was a waif, swallowed by the shapeless mass of his leather jacket that he had given her that night to ward off the cold during their midnight beach-walk at Dunkirk. </p><p>He had to hold the line for her. </p><p>"What is your happiest memory?" he demanded, hoping fiercely that it was not one of Nat Rosier. </p><p>"Papa conjuring a Kraken of waves and sea-foam for me, when I told him about Pirates during a walk together upon the Swanage cliffs," she whispered, pale and terrified. </p><p>"Hold that memory close," he ordered her, as their visitors came into the periphery of his sight. "Think of nothing else. Swear to me."</p><p>"I promise," she said, eyes wide as she came into the presence of Dementors for the first time in her life. </p><p>"Mr. Potter!" A sweet, simpering tone that hid the sadism underneath. </p><p>He glanced at his hand. More than twenty-five years had gone by since the erstwhile Hogwarts High Inquisitor had forced him to scar himself with her Blood Quill. </p><p>Her hatred could work in his favor, to draw her attention solely upon him.</p><p>"I shall be presiding over your trial today." </p><p>The Aurors flanking her entered the cell and dragged him out. His tremulous hope died when she turned to the cell across his. </p><p>"I have long wanted to make your acquaintance," Umbridge taunted, surveying the girl head to toe. "You Know Who's bastard get. I blame your mother. Azkaban made a whore of her." </p><p>They had castrated the male prisoners, Voldemort had said. What had they done to the women? Harry had wondered. He wished he had remained in ignorance. </p><p><em>Say nothing</em>, Harry prayed desperately, knowing well how Umbridge reveled in humiliation and cruelty. </p><p>"A quiet one, aren't you?" Umbridge simpered. "Our Mr. Potter was once rather the opposite. Did he tell you of our long acquaintance?" </p><p>Delphini remained silent thankfully, refusing to rise to the bait. </p><p>"Bring them to the courtroom," Umbridge ordered. "We follow the rule of law on this side of the Wall. You shall receive a trial and the chance to defend yourself."</p><p>Then she beamed at Harry. </p><p>"The Aurors for Mr. Potter.  Miss Lestrange shall be escorted by the Dementors."</p><p>Delphini gasped, stoicism slipping, as the Dementors came to flank her. </p><p>Umbridge's smugness at the girl's evident terror cast a pall heavier than even the cutting cold of the foul creatures. The centaurs should have slaughtered her when they had had her in their clutches twenty-five years ago. Harry would not make the same mistake if she harmed a hair on the girl. The last time he had known this boiling fury had been when chasing Bellatrix through the corridors of the Ministry. </p><p>Umbridge's pink cardigan blazed bright as she led their march to the courtroom, through the passages of Azkaban. The stone about Harry's neck was searing hot. His emotions were running away with him, and the sentience of his magic demanded vengeance. Only the grounding tether of the stone kept the Obscurus appeased. </p><p>Even in Azkaban's bowels, surrounded by Dementors, Voldemort's magic remained an unassailable bulwark against Harry's fear and fury. The Dementors about them screeched in torment. </p><p>"You are a happy man, Potter," Umbridge remarked. "An odd trait in one walking to his condemnation. Then again, you have always strived to be special."  </p><p>Hoarse coughing rose from one of the cells they were walking past. </p><p>"The virus," Delphini murmured, alarmed. "Are the prisoners vaccinated?" </p><p>"Don't be foolish, silly girl. We did not waste our vaccine potions on the evildoers," Umbridge said sweetly. </p><p>The pandemic had roared through Azkaban unchecked. How many had died? How many were alive? Harry was fiercely glad that the girl was vaccinated. He did not put it past Umbridge to have her victims deliberately infected.  </p><p>They were marched up stone staircases dimly lit, until they reached a cavernous amphitheater. There was a gallows occupying the pride of place. </p><p>"We had a guillotine before the 1990s, when Azkaban was under Crouch's supervision," Umbridge informed them. "Albus Dumbledore petitioned against capital punishment. Cornelius chose the middle path." </p><p>Harry was certain that Umbridge meant to bring the guillotine back in vogue, as soon as she could get away with it. </p><p>The Aurors dragged Harry and the girl to the prisoner's stand, and forced them down into stone chairs. Manacles emerged from the floor to fetter their limbs. Delphini's breathing hitched when a collar shaped about her neck.</p><p>"Unused to the ways of a lawful nation, girl?" Umbridge asked cloyingly. </p><p>"Healer Lestrange," Delphini replied. Her words rung clarion clear in the silence. </p><p>How Harry wished she had remained meek! </p><p>Umbridge tittered and loomed over them, ensconced in the chair of the Judge. </p><p>"Dawlish."</p><p>Auror Dawlish cast a Silencing charm on the girl.</p><p>"Harry Potter, you aided <em>Healer</em> Lestrange to bring the virus into our country. This court finds you guilty of high treason. You are sentenced to Azkaban for twenty years. In accordance with the laws of the Northern Territories, you shall be castrated and your wand broken before your imprisonment."</p><p>Treason.</p><p>Skeeter's propaganda about the pandemic being a means of destabilizing their country had not been to sell more copies of her flaming pile of garbage. It had been a noose, fashioned for him, months ago, at the peak of the pandemic. </p><p>"Treason?" Harry spat. "Is that what you are going with, you evil meat-bag?"</p><p>Umbridge sneered at him. </p><p>"You have powerful supporters who bartered your sentence down from capital punishment, Potter. Worry not, worry not! Your luck is running low, and sooner or later you shall know the full extent of our laws."</p><p>Powerful supporters? In the Ministry? Had Griselda intervened? Had Hermione started a Twitter campaign? Had Minerva and Snape managed to gather the Order? Had Dumbledore returned to the country? Julian Assange had powerful supporters. It had not done him a whit of good.</p><p>What had happened to Fudge? The Minister was incompetent, but he was not a malicious man. Whose game was this? Umbridge's? Scrimgeour's? How deep had the rot sunken? </p><p>Kristallnacht, Harry and Delphini had learned when walking the streets of Nuremberg together with their audioguides, had been when the Nazis had swept the establishment clean of their detractors, laying the foundation of unopposed tyranny. </p><p>The coup had begun their pograms before this night, Harry realized. They knew they could not hope to hold the country unless Dumbledore and Harry were neutralized. They knew they would be sitting ducks if Griselda chose to invade, unless Voldemort was neutralized. </p><p>Umbridge should not learn that she held the next Headmaster of Hogwarts. She should not learn that Delphini was <em>loved</em> by her father. She must not realize the prize she held in her foul hands. They were wagering that Voldemort would act to save his daughter, from a sense of warped possessiveness over his get. They did not know what he would do for her. He had given magic and mind in slavery's bond to save Abraxas. Harry did not intend to see what he might do to save his daughter's life. </p><p>"Don't be ashamed of screaming, Mr. Potter," Umbridge said with mocking gentleness, and cast the Castration Spell on him. </p><p>He gritted his teeth through the roiling pain, refusing to give her the pleasure of his screams. Tittering, she cast the Cruciatus on his hand, on his hand marked by her Blood Quill. </p><p>He screamed. </p><p>Delphini's magic, hawthorn's light, was frantic about him, inexperienced and frightened, as she sought to stop his agony. The stone about his neck was waking from inertness, moving from the calm it had ever carried to dark fury. It was their last hope, if only he could cast upon it as Snape had in his tiny flat at Aberdeen. He had to hide it from their captors's attention. Not a moment too soon.</p><p>Terrified, he fought through the pain to center his mind. Every lesson Snape had taught him in Occlumency had served him not, until then, and in desperation's resolve, he overcame the pain to calm himself. </p><p>"You are weeping tears of blood, Potter. I have not seen that before. Ever the special one, aren't you?" Umbridge remarked. </p><p>Tears of blood. Harry had seen that before, on the cracked stones of the temple of Delphi, under Saturn's lone watch. </p><p>"Remove the silencing spell from the girl," she ordered. </p><p>"<em>Healer</em> Lestrange, your trial shall be later."</p><p>Umbridge wanted the girl relatively unharmed until they had no use for her as a bargaining chip. It comforted Harry.</p><p>"You are to be punished for your contempt of court," Umbridge continued. </p><p>A quill and a parchment came to Delphini. The fetters on her hands vanished. She looked at the implements in puzzlement. Rage smothered the agony in Harry's veins. </p><p>"Umbridge-" he began.</p><p>"<em>Chief Warlock Umbridge</em>", she corrected him.<br/>
 <br/>
"You will write lines, girl."</p><p>"Lines?" Delphini asked, baffled. </p><p>"<em>My father is a monster. I hate my father</em>," Umbridge dictated. </p><p>Delphini stared at her, stricken. </p><p>"For every second you hesitate, that is a second of the Cruciatus owed to Potter," Umbridge explained with sugary politeness. "I cannot harm you, but I can harm him."</p><p>Seeing the girl's inaction, she laughed and cast the Cruciatus on Harry. </p><p>"Stop! Stop!" Delphini shouted. </p><p>Her eyes were bright in emotion, but she did not weep. She bent her head and wrote upon the parchment. </p><p>On her right hand bloomed letters of blood. <em>I hate my father</em>, it said. </p><p>Her left hand was missing an index finger that the Auror had severed when taking them captive in Dunkirk. Upon its pale arose the rest of Umbridge's dictation. <em>My father is a monster</em>, her blood wrote upon her skin raising permanent scars. </p><p>Her magic was a rising crest of fury and anguish, but she did not cry. She carried on bravely, not letting a tear fall, as once Bellatrix and Sirius and Narcissa had all carried on through war and loss. It was the Black blood in her. Voldemort was not given to stoicism. He had wept in Draco's arms by Lucius's bed. He had wept in Harry's arms upon the cracked stones of the temple.   </p><p>"Bring Mr. Potter's wand forward."</p><p>Umbridge meant to break it herself. </p><p>"Eleven inches long, made of holly, with a phoenix feather core," she droned, weighing the wand in her palms. "Nice and supple." </p><p>Harry would not give her <em>his</em> breaking. If Delphini could write lies upon her skin that flayed her to the heart, to spare him, he would be strong for her sake. </p><p>"A deal," Delphini spoke then. "I can offer you a deal in lieu."</p><p>She sat upon her chair of fetters as if it were a throne, and the steel in her Harry had seen before, in Narcissa and in Draco. </p><p>"A deal, girl?" Umbridge laughed. "What could you offer me that I cannot take for myself?" </p><p>"A prophecy," Delphini stated, resolved, even as her hands bled with lies she had carven into them for Harry's sake. "A prophecy that can bring Lord Voldemort down." </p><p>Umbridge scoffed. "The old prophecy was broken, foolish girl! Harry Potter is no longer his equal." Then, seeing Delphini's quiet self-assurance, she spoke, "There is another prophecy." </p><p>Delphini tilted her head in acquiescence. The gesture reminded Harry of her father and he swallowed. She was playing a dangerous game. Umbridge was cunning sadism given form.</p><p>"Dawlish!" Umbridge ordered. </p><p>The Auror came forward and pointed his wand at the girl. She did not flinch. </p><p>"Legilimens!" he shouted.</p><p>The power of his spell was as high-tide crashing on the shore. Delphini screamed, and her magic was helter-skelter, hawthorn burning and falling to cinders leaving her mind unprotected, as he peeled away her secrets. He retreated. Her head thudded against the stone back of the chair, as he withdrew.</p><p>"She tells the truth, Chief Warlock," he declared. </p><p>"Give me the prophecy, girl," Umbridge ordered. </p><p>There was no prophecy. The only fate that Voldemort wore was his love for Delphini. Harry dearly hoped that the girl knew what she was doing. </p><p>"You vow not to break that wand," Delphini bartered. </p><p>"You have my word, misbegotten child."<br/>
 <br/>
Delphini took a deep breath.   </p><p>"<em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>," she spoke, her words resounding in the cavernous amphitheater. "<em>By ash, hawthorn and holly bound, he lives and dies</em>."</p><p>"Do you vow upon your magic that this prophecy is true and spoken to us in completeness?" </p><p>"I vow upon my magic," she swore, and chains of gold viscous came to hold her to her word. </p><p>"Delphini-" </p><p>"Silence, Potter!" Umbridge barked, gleeful as she contemplated the secret she had wrested from the girl. "Shave the girl's head and strip her before throwing her into her cell. I may not harm you, girl, but I see no reason to deny the Aurors <em>some</em> fun."</p><p>Even after Sirius's death, Harry had not known this wrath. The stone and his magic were one, holly blooming bright and fierce upon rising evergreen, and the manacles binding him shattered. </p><p>The Aurors began casting petrifying charms on him. Umbridge was yelling orders. Delphini's magic, frightened, was a faint white in the tapestry drawn from stone and smoke. </p><p>For as smoke, as wind, as formless sentience, Harry's magic rose from him Obscurial.  </p><p>The stones of the amphitheater groaned and cracked. Umbridge's desk and gavel fell into splinters. Her skin peeled away from her, as she screamed for mercy. </p><p>The Obscurus had no mercy. Ruthless, it rampaged, until the open seas and the gale met it. </p><p>"Harry, Harry, please!" Delphini was screaming, as she stood upon a chary ledge, coaxing the smoke back to her. Desperate, she raised his wand of holly and cast upon the stone at the vortex of him. </p><p>"Morsmordre!" </p><p>Voldemort's magic rose to quell the Obscurus to form and man once more, binding magic into flesh and bone. The sentience of it fought, thirsting for vengeance, unsated. Harry was man and wind, and then wind and man, as magic and mind wrested for control on the battleground of the stone's evergreen lullaby. </p><p>When he came to, he was on Delphini's lap, and she was chanting to heal the wounds on his flesh. He was weak, drained as a husk, and fading in and out of awareness. </p><p>"You did not harm me," she hastened to say, before he could speak.</p><p>"I could not have harmed you," he replied truthfully. Mindless magic or man bound to flesh and bone, he would protect her. </p><p>She smiled. It reminded him of Narcissa's sphinx-like smile, of sacrifices made in secret. Worried, he struggled to sit up. Drenched in sea-spray, wild-haired from the winds, she was shivering; a strange fragility enveloped her.  </p><p>"Cast a warming charm," he ordered her. </p><p>She shook her head. </p><p>An Obscurus, once it manifested in fullness, would leave the wizard weak and dying, he had read in many books. He was weakened, but he was not dying. He brought a shaking hand to the pulse at the girl's neck. </p><p>"What have you done, you foolish girl?" </p><p>"It was necessary." </p><p>She had given her magic to bind him back to flesh and bone. No Obscurial had survived the unleashing of the parasite they hosted, in documented history. It was without precedent. </p><p>She had known. She had known that Umbridge would order humiliation, even if she could not order harm. She had known that Harry's Obscurus would not be stayed by the stone then. So she had lied to Umbridge by fabricating a prophecy. She had unflinchingly sworn upon her magic, for it did not matter any more, for she had decided to save Harry by sacrificing it.</p><p>Narcissa had sacrificed her magic to heal Voldemort's soul. <em>For it is hawthorn that heals the broken heart</em>, Firenze had said. <em>Hawthorn crowns you</em>. </p><p>"You love me," Delphini murmured, voice full of wonder. </p><p><em>Storge is the love of a man for his family</em>, Narcissa had said. She had been able to heal Voldemort because he had loved her as a man loves his family. </p><p>Delphini had been able to save Harry because he loved her. </p><p>"Foolish girl," he whispered, flayed, afraid, powerless, clinging to her. She held him as he wept, battered by sea-spray and wind upon broken stone.  </p><p>"We need to get out," she said gently, mopping his face with the sleeve of her robes.</p><p>He took the twine cord about his neck and placed it about hers. Her skin turned warm against his. The bleeding wounds on her hands healed leaving behind scars.</p><p>"Papa," she said brokenly, staring at the words upon her skin, and a first tear   fell upon her hands. </p><p>Harry pulled her up. They had to get to Voldemort before he committed an impulsive act to rescue the girl. Umbridge and Scrimgeour were canny opponents. Voldemort, despite his power, was given to impulse that had led him to failure again and again. </p><p>"Onwards," he told her. </p><p>"Ever onwards," she replied, exhausted, shattered, as magical as a squib. </p><p>"Together," he vowed to her, and took her hand in his. </p><p>"The prisoners-" </p><p>"No," Harry said flatly, leading her carefully through the carnage and destruction his Obscurus had caused. He did not know an iota of remorse as he saw the dead Aurors or the mangled pile of flesh and bone that had been Umbridge. </p><p>"We cannot leave them to die grasping for breath!" </p><p>He dragged her along. She was powerless, without magic. She had given the last of her magic to heal his flesh. Even so, he would not be able to hold his own against a battalion of Aurors. </p><p>He needed to get her to Swanage. He needed to stay Voldemort from impulsive action. He needed to find Dumbledore. Prisoners dying from the virus thanks to Umbridge's cruelty was not his cause.   </p><p>Before they left-</p><p>"Accio Delphini's wand!" he shouted, and hawthorn came to him. </p><p>Grief washed her face. </p><p>"Come on," he hurried her, loathing himself for not even giving her a moment's grace to mourn. He could not afford to be merciful, not when her safety was at stake. </p><p>They ran down the dim stairways. Cold hunted them, malicious and determined to seize their souls. </p><p>He remembered their last dinner at Swanage, where they had recited to each other verses from <em>The Conquest of Bread</em>, teasing Voldemort until he had laughed and burned the crepes he had been making for them. He remembered kissing Voldemort on New Year's Eve, at pandemic's end, pushing him down upon that kitchen table, with only the moon and a hunting owl standing witnesses. </p><p>"Expecto Patronum!" </p><p>An owl soared from his wand, with mighty-spanned wings that beat up a wind in the stillness, as the smoke and silver of the Obscurus, and it hunted down the screaming Dementors with talon and beak. James's stag had protected Harry once. A hunting owl, fierce and powerful, bore down merciless upon their attackers.  </p><p>They reached the boat landing. There was no boat. How were they to get off this accursed island? Apparition and portkeys would not work.   </p><p>"Crucio!" </p><p>Mad-Eye's curse struck him as he leapt to shield the girl. He had a battalion of Aurors with him. They were doomed, Harry realized. </p><p>"Harry!" </p><p>He shook his head as she lifted her wand of hawthorn. She had no magic. Moody did not know yet. If he knew-</p><p>Red blazed fiercer than the sunset they had watched over the Aegean Sea. Moody's curse fell away, as he leapt out of the line of fire. Harry tried to rise, but he had been weakened by the manifestation of the Obscurus, and he managed only to crawl to where Delphini stood stricken, her eyes fixed on the woman that stood between her and the Aurors. Summoning the last dregs of his strength, he tottered to his feet and cast the strongest shield charm he could on the girl. </p><p>"Where are the rest?" Moody barked at Bill Weasley, who was staring at Harry horrified. </p><p>"Dead," Bellatrix spoke, unfazed by the thirteen battle-hardened Aurors she faced. </p><p>A flash of green surged from Moody's wand. Delphini screamed. Harry pulled her close and cupped her mouth, shaking his head in warning. Bellatrix could not afford a distraction.</p><p>Bellatrix was the finest duelist of their times, but it availed her not as thirteen cast upon her as one in orchestration. Where her wand did not suffice, her agility served her, as she leapt away from spell light and objects summoned to attack her. She killed when she could, ruthless. There was no battlelust in her bright eyes. She was a <em>mother</em>.  </p><p>Under Job's coffin, under the stars of the Delphinus, she fought the Aurors to save her child. Moody knew, and she knew, and Harry knew, that she was outnumbered, that the outcome was inevitable. Harry could not join her. He would do more harm than good to her cause, weak as he was. </p><p>"Accio stone!" she shouted, as a cutting curse missed her by a silver. The stone went to her. </p><p>"Potter, take her to the boat!" </p><p>The boat! She had hidden the boat. Blood wards, he was sure. Harry cut a line on Delphini's palm, and with her blood, cast a revealing charm. </p><p>The boat bobbed upon the shallow waters of the dock, small and painted white. He ran towards it, dragging the girl with him.  </p><p>"Mum!" </p><p>"Take her and leave, Potter!"</p><p>"Mum! No!"  </p><p>Harry grabbed Delphini and leapt into the boat, cutting off the ropes that tethered it to the dock posts. She lurched towards the dock, trying to make her way back to Bellatrix. <br/>
 <br/>
An explosion rocked the boat, and only Harry's quick thinking to cast an acceleration charm got them safely out of the range of the conflagration, as the fortress fell, as men screamed. </p><p>"Mum!" Delphini screamed, inconsolable and irrational in Harry's arms. </p><p>"It is not my day to die yet," a familiar voice said from behind them. </p><p>Sitting by the till, steering them into the deep sea, was Bellatrix. About her neck, as protection, lay a stone. </p><p>"Mum," Delphini whispered, exhausted.</p><p>"Come here," Bellatrix ordered briskly. Her child went to her. Bellatrix's eyes widened as she took in the scars on Delphini's hands and her missing finger, but she said nothing. </p><p>"My magic-" Delphini began, frightened, grieving. <br/>
   <br/>
"Narcissa manages quite well to be a merry blight upon my existence without a speck of magic," Bellatrix said dismissively. She plucked the stone from about her neck and placed it back about Delphini's. "Your father's magic is soporific. You would not want your boatwoman to be nodding off now, would you?"</p><p>Harry admired her acting. He knew, as she did, that if she were to fall apart, that if she were to blame him, Delphini would be lost to them. </p><p>If Bellatrix could put on a stoic face for Delphini, so could he. In the distance, receding, was an island on flames. What had happened to the Dementors?</p><p>"How did you escape the island?" he asked Bellatrix. </p><p>"I flew." </p><p>"Mum can fly!" Delphini said excitedly. "Papa taught her long ago. He had promised to teach me as a wedding gift." Her face fell as she stared at the missing ring finger on her left hand, and then at the words written in scars.</p><p>"You fought well," Harry said, striving to keep the girl away from grief. </p><p>"Delphini, what did you learn in your Defense lessons?"</p><p>"That Mum is the best duelist of our times!" Delphini said brightly, turning to behold her mother in pride. "Don't you agree, Harry?"</p><p>Sirius had fallen to his cousin. Harry had cast his first and last Cruciatus upon Bellatrix.</p><p>"Indeed. She is the best duelist of our times," he said quietly. </p><p>In a little boat on the North Sea, against an island on fire, he made his pact with Bellatrix for Delphini's sake. </p><p>"Where is Papa?" Delphini demanded, fraught, teeth chattering, shivering as a candle-flame in the gale. </p><p>Not from the cold, Harry realized in horror. She had no magic left, and it had left her without immunity and thermoregulation. Even the stone upon her chest did not suffice to warm her. They needed to get her to safety. A strange magic placed its pall upon the boat. <em>Death</em>. </p><p>They needed to get her to Voldemort. </p><p>"Where is Voldemort? Where is Dumbledore?" Harry pressed.</p><p>Bellatrix threw him a foul glare and demanded, "Hold the line, Potter."</p><p>Hold the line. </p><p>He had to stay calm and level-headed. Delphini was perilously close to death. Bellatrix knew and yet employed the ruthless strategizing that had marked her the most dangerous opponent of the second war. Harry needed to stay level-headed too. Delphini needed them both to work in tandem without cracking rife with despair.    </p><p>"Is Papa all right?" </p><p>"Events occurred," Bellatrix replied.</p><p>It was no answer at all.  </p><p>Harry saw her tactic. Better to keep Delphini focused on her worries about Voldemort so that she might not notice her deterioration. </p><p>"Mum!" </p><p>"Hold the line!" Bellatrix barked, rooted about in her cleavage to unearth something blubbery, and tossed them the ugly blobs. </p><p>Gillyweed. </p><p>With gusto, she unearthed more and stuffed them into her mouth. </p><p>"Mum-" </p><p>The boat started sinking into the North Sea. Helpfully, Bellatrix cast a sticking charm to tether them to the vessel. </p><p>Hold the line. </p><p>Channeling his inner Bellatrix, Harry told Delphini, "Chew the damned weed." </p><p>The boat sunk, and whirled away, as the hurricane that took Dorothy away from Kansas once. Harry hung on to Delphini for dear life, shielding her from whipping seaweed and coral castles, casting charms to repel Grindylows and other creatures that came to hunt them. Her eyes were wide as a Kraken chased them. Bellatrix, like the bloody madwoman she was, cranked the till, and they spun faster in the eye of the storm that took them through sea-caves and tunnels, until all was dark, and then lit by gloaming's faint light. </p><p>The boat burst to the surface on the Lake of Hogwarts, and a confused Squid splashed away. Water-logged, shivering, Harry watched Bellatrix steer the boat neatly to dock by the lakeside. </p><p>"You said you had never learned to sail," Delphini accused her, through chattering teeth. </p><p>"I must be a natural," Bellatrix said cheerfully, helping her to her feet, and neatly leaping off the boat to solid earth. </p><p>Harry assisted Delphini to cross, and then followed her.  </p><p>Behind them, the boat fell apart into destroyed timber. Bellatrix had held it through their wild voyage with pure magic. </p><p>"Mum-"</p><p>"Hop to it," Bellatrix ordered. "We have places to be." </p><p>Her eyes were on the horizon, and she was frowning. What did she fear, for it was plain to Harry that writ upon her features was fear? Not wishing Delphini to take notice, he dragged her along to the Castle. </p><p>Snape and Minerva hurried to them. </p><p>"What happened to you, dear girl?" Minerva demanded, summoning tartan wool to wrap Delphini in. "Severus, she is cold as death! We must hurry!"</p><p>"Where is Dumbledore?" Harry implored. "She needs help!" </p><p>Snape pointed to the horizon. From the direction of Hogsmeade, on a broomstick bobbing about oddly, came Aberforth. In his arms, head lolling against his shoulder, was his brother. </p><p>"Dumbledore!" </p><p>"To the Astronomy Tower!" Snape barked, as he realized the trajectory of the broomstick. "Now!" </p><p>The Castle's magic rose fierce then, in a song of welcome. For Dumbledore? For the girl she had chosen? Snape swore as a man appeared out of thin air.</p><p>"Take Delphini to the bedrock," Voldemort said, rushing past them, not sparing the girl a second glance, storming up the stairs, making for the Astronomy Tower. </p><p>"Papa-"</p><p>"The Castle was warded against him!" Snape complained, running after him. </p><p>What wards truly could keep him out when the Castle willed otherwise? Voldemort's magic was deep in her. The Heir and the Headmaster, and they had held the Castle together since the 1940s in pact for her sake. </p><p>"Harry," Minerva said, worried. </p><p>He turned to Bellatrix. </p><p>"Go with them," she ordered. "Delphini is safe in my care."  </p><p>He did not trust her, but he knew she would protect Delphini. He chased Voldemort and Snape up the stairs. </p><p>---</p><p>Aberforth landed with a crash on the Astronomy Tower, upon the stones where Harry and Ron and Hermione had often lollygagged about drinking and watching the stars, sprawled on Sinistra's tiger-skin rugs. </p><p>Harry managed to catch Dumbledore in his arms. </p><p>"Are you all right?" he asked, frightened, as Dumbledore's eyes rolled up in his head and spittle ran down his chin. </p><p>"There are only three stars marking the coffin," Voldemort remarked, looking up at the sky. </p><p>He was right. </p><p>Job's Coffin was four stars forming a quadrilateral in the shape of a coffin, in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. There had been four, when Harry had left Azkaban. There were only three left. </p><p>Grindelwald was dead, Harry knew instinctively. He had died at Dumbledore's hands. Dumbledore had left the country to gift death to the man he had once refused that end. The Castle was killing Dumbledore, as she sought to draw to herself the new Headmaster she had chosen. His days had been numbered, and he had wanted to release Grindelwald from accursed existence in a coffin of stone before his own death. </p><p>"Albus," Snape begged, foisting upon Dumbledore potion after potion, casting upon him multiple re-enervation charms. </p><p>"He did not tell me whose spell it had been, Abe," Dumbledore whispered. "He lied to me."</p><p>Ariana. He was speaking of the skirmish that had spelled Ariana's death. Whose spell had it been? The question had weighed down Dumbledore since 1899, for more than a century. Grindelwald had taken the blame for her death. </p><p>The One. </p><p>Dumbledore had grieved the One for more than a century. And buried alive in a coffin of stone, Grindelwald had still not dealt Dumbledore a fatal blow by casting upon him the blame of Ariana's death. </p><p>Involuntarily, Harry turned to Voldemort, to the man he had chosen under an ash tree by the river. The quiet grief painted on Voldemort's features was matched only the resolve he wore plainly. Harry gasped as he realized what Voldemort had come to enact.</p><p>"You went to Nurmengard," Snape said, aghast. "Albus, of all the bloody foolish things-" </p><p>"He did not lie to you," Aberforth said gently. "Her death was not of your make, brother."</p><p>Dumbledore shook his head, disbelieving. </p><p>"It was not," Voldemort said abruptly. "I broke into Nurmengard weeks ago, to pry from him the knowledge he had of Obscurials." </p><p>"And you wrested from him other secrets too, didn't you, Tom?" Dumbledore asked, with ancient and long-nursed fury bright in his eyes. </p><p>"It was necessary."</p><p><em>It was necessary</em>, Delphini had said, when Harry had wept for her magic sacrificed. </p><p>Dumbledore sighed, and stumbled to his feet. He walked lightly, as one serene. Relieved of guilt, Harry realized. He trusted Voldemort's Legilimency. </p><p>"Stand aside, Severus," Voldemort demanded. </p><p>"No," Snape vowed, standing between Dumbledore and Voldemort, wand of hawthorn raised. </p><p>"Stand aside, Severus," Dumbledore asked softly.</p><p>"You cannot duel him now." </p><p>"I don't mean to."</p><p>"Albus, please!" </p><p>"The girl needs the Castle," Dumbledore said, and his quiet words were serene acceptance that cloaked him in a strange magic. It petrified Harry and Snape both, and they stood frozen in despairing helplessness, condemned to watch. </p><p>"Abe."</p><p>"Go in peace," Aberforth said, and his words were love.</p><p>Dumbledore beamed, young and mischievous in the bright of starlight, before he faced Voldemort.  </p><p>Green blazed from Voldemort's wand of yew, cocooning Dumbledore in velveteen lullaby, before he toppled off the tower.  The magic binding Harry and Snape broke. </p><p>"Albus!" </p><p>Aberforth held Snape through his mad rage and grief. </p><p>Voldemort turned to Harry. The tentative hope in his gaze flickered faint through the resolution he wore. Despite what Harry's judgement might be, Voldemort had no remorse for his act.  </p><p>Dumbledore believed in euthanasia. He had come back from Nurmengard a dying man. He had willingly chosen death to save the girl. He had implied that this was the only way to save the girl, to consecrate her in the Castle in his place. </p><p>"To the bedrock," Harry said. </p><p>Snape's Sectumsempra landed mere inches from Voldemort, cutting gouges deep into the Castle's stone. </p><p>"I shall endure more tonight than he did, Severus," Voldemort said quietly. </p><p>The misery in his voice left Harry reeling. </p><p>------</p><p>The Castle's bedrock was below the Slytherin dungeons, in a damp cavern with pagan figurines of ancient times, and at the center was a raised altar surrounded by sconces. </p><p>Delphini lay on the earth floor, unmoving, pale as a statue, wrapped in the tartan wools Minerva had piled upon her. Minerva was seated beside her, taking her pulse and frowning in worry.</p><p>"I cannot watch this," Bellatrix stated, from where she stood guard over the girl. For the first time that day, her voice betrayed frank emotion. </p><p>"You may leave, Bella," Voldemort said gently.</p><p>"You cannot do this alone," she said, exhausted.</p><p>What did the consecration rite involve? Sacrifice, he knew. The Castle was a sentient and mindless self that demanded absolute fealty. Delphini was Voldemort's fate, and his love would not let him harm her even if it meant saving her. Bellatrix spoke the truth. He could not do this alone. </p><p>"You are her mother," Voldemort murmured. "I cannot ask this of you, Bella." </p><p>"I am a Black," she said, though her eyes were sheened bright by tears. </p><p>"I can stay," Harry offered grimly. "I can stay, Bellatrix. Minerva, escort her outside." </p><p>He had shown himself more capable of stoicism than Voldemort had managed when it came to the girl. Bellatrix nodded to him and left the chamber. </p><p>"Keep them alive, Harry," Minerva asked, her gaze worried as she beheld Voldemort. "Riddle, you must not act in impulse, please." </p><p>He had acted in impulse to save Abraxas Malfoy, and his love had condemned four generations to war. </p><p>"I am here," Harry said softly, reassuring Minerva, though he did not know what to do if Voldemort acted impulsively to save the girl by binding himself to her as he had done to save Abraxas once.   </p><p>After her departure, he turned to Voldemort, who watched him as if etching him into memory. </p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"May I trouble you to hold me for a moment, Harry?"</p><p>Voldemort had decided that Harry would want nothing to do with him after the rite. To be thought of as fickle should have enraged Harry. It did not. He went to the man. Half a year had passed since the last time they had been in each other's presence, and yet he found his arms neatly enveloping Voldemort who came into his embrace with a murmur of his name. </p><p>"I will hold you tonight," Harry promised, even if he knew that Voldemort would not believe him.</p><p>He settled for pressing a kiss to Voldemort's brow instead. </p><p>"Go on," he said gently. "I am here." </p><p>Voldemort's face was streaked by tears. He was not as Harry or Minerva or Snape or the Blacks. He wept openly, shieldless in emotion's lurching hold. </p><p>"Go on," Harry coaxed him. </p><p>Voldemort moved away from their embrace and went to lift Delphini to the altar. To his chanting, the scones blazed bright. </p><p>The Castle's magic rose, blue and ancient and wanting, as it swirled about Voldemort and the girl on the altar. Would she want Delphini, when the girl had not a speck of magic left in her? </p><p>A lash of blue struck Voldemort, furious, as the Castle realized that his offering had not the power she sought. The ground shook underneath Harry's feet.</p><p>Evergreen rose, fierce as high tide, and upon it was rooted deep ash and hawthorn and holly. It had lost its purity of once, and was stained by love's gouges, and yet startlingly beautiful in its sweep of velveteen. The Castle paused, sentience recognizing the heir. </p><p>Voldemort took a deep breath and brought his wand of yew to Delphini's chest. Her ribcage shattered. He swayed, near fainting at the sight of what he had done to her. Harry rushed to him to steady him, and clasped his wand arm in Harry's own. </p><p>"I cannot-"</p><p>Bellatrix had spoken the truth. Voldemort could not see this through alone. </p><p>"I am here," Harry promised. "Together." </p><p>Voldemort, weeping, broke his wand of yew over the altar. The rupture of the wand sent him to his knees, as a connection of more than eighty years sundered between wizard and wand. Crawling, he plucked the phoenix feather from the splinters of yew, and placed it upon Delphini's faint-beating heart. </p><p>Instinct, Hermione had called Harry's knowing. Intuition, Dumbledore had termed it. Dumb luck, Minerva had claimed. Obscurus, Snape had named it. Whatever it may be, Harry knew and did not doubt.   </p><p>"Harry, no!" Voldemort exclaimed, horrified when he saw Harry's intent. </p><p><em>Storge</em> was the love of a man for his family. Delphini had sacrificed her magic for Harry. He broke his wand of holly. His heart skipped a beat, and it was as if someone had walked over his grave, and he was kept upright only by Voldemort's desperate wandless casting. He took the phoenix feather from his broken wand's core and placed it upon the girl's heart. </p><p>Gold glowed the feathers, gold as had once emanated from yew and holly when brother wands had crossed in battle once upon a time in a graveyard where a madman had hunted a boy who lived. The Castle's magic, blue and bright, stayed its restlessness and beheld the phenomenon. </p><p>They were not equals in magic anymore, but <em>Storge</em> united them, as their wand cores united to send life and magic pulsing through Delphini's heart, into her veins, into her soul, until she sat up with a scream. Blue entered her open mouth, as a swirl of smoke and her eyes gleamed white. </p><p>An Obscurial's eyes were colorless, Harry had read in the books. His eyes had turned whenever the Obscurus had begun to manifest. Snape had cracked the mirror in Harry's Aberdeen flat before he could see himself. </p><p>Delphini, eyes bleak white, screaming, amid the wild wind that whipped about the chamber, was as the Gorgon of the Aegean Sea, despairing and vengeful. The wound on her chest healed pristine.</p><p>Voldemort's shield saved Harry from a brutal eruption of the Castle's magic mingling with the magic of phoenix feathers. </p><p>Delphini's hands rose, seizing in fists, as if tugging ropes, and the magic vanished, submitting. </p><p>"Mine the Castle," she said, with a thousand voices and eyes of white. </p><p>"Yours the Castle," Voldemort said softly. </p><p>White faded away to black, and she blinked at them, puzzled. </p><p>"Papa?" she breathed, before guilt made her drop her gaze. </p><p>"You are alive," Voldemort whispered, going to hold her. "Brave child."</p><p>He had never called her <em>his</em> child, Harry knew then. He did not believe that she could have been made from him, the sweet and good thing that she was. </p><p>"You must forgive me," she begged. "I am so sorry, Papa." </p><p>"Here is your penance," Voldemort declared, and cut the ring finger of his left hand. It came to affix itself to the disfigured stub where her finger had been before the Auror had severed it. </p><p>She lifted her wand of hawthorn to heal his bleeding. And gasped when the wood burned her hand. </p><p>"The Castle's magic is not compatible with your wand," Voldemort said gently. Before she could speak, Harry picked up her wand and cast a healing charm upon Voldemort's wound. </p><p>The wand, abandoning the owner it no longer knew, came to Harry, switching allegiance. </p><p>Before he could apologize, Delphini said, "If it must leave me, I cannot think of anyone else who is deserving." </p><p>------</p><p>Harry stood by Delphini's bedroom door, watching the scene within. The Castle had reshaped the Headmaster's quarters. There were Lady Gaga pictures on the wall. There were figurines on the mantel: Bowie and the Stones, Judas Priest, Pirates of the Caribbean. </p><p><em>The Headmaster and the Castle are one</em>, Minerva had told Harry once. Had Delphini's desires influenced the Castle? Had the Castle actively sought to unearth her likes and dislikes through their bond? It was as courting, Harry mused. The Castle wanted Delphini to stay and love her.  </p><p>Delphini had not seen Dumbledore's quarters before. Harry had. Once, Dumbledore must have stepped into Dippet's quarters and found it unrecognizable as the Castle changed all to suit his own tastes. The mindless sentience of her relegated the dead Headmaster to a portrait and ate his magic, and then turned to please the living chosen. </p><p>The mirror Delphini was sat before, with bright bulbs encircling it, reminded Harry of American movies. Voldemort was standing behind her, drying her hair with a fluffy pink towel the likes of which she had at Swanage. The Castle had left no stone unturned to please her new Headmaster. </p><p>"Mum returned?" she asked glumly. "She did not even wish me goodbye." </p><p>"She had matters to see to," Voldemort replied. "Whenever has she sought to keep courtesies as goodbyes and hellos?"  </p><p>Delphini hummed and brought her hands to the stone about her neck. In the mirror, the scars on the backs of her hands were raised and stark. In the mirror, the finger Voldemort had cut from his own hand and attached to hers contrasted sepulchral against the dainty loveliness of her hand.</p><p>"Aunt Narcissa says that I have your hands."</p><p>"You do," Voldemort said softly. </p><p>"Dreadlocks, Papa?"</p><p>He made a tutting sound at what he thought of the hairstyle, but settled in to weave dreadlocks into her curly head of hair. </p><p>"You shouldn't have disfigured yourself," she said, voice spun brittle of guilt and shame, raising her left hand and placing it upon his, twining their fingers. </p><p>"I have nine left," he remarked lightly. </p><p>"If Harry were to give you a ring-" she said, anguished.</p><p>"He has nine left," Harry cut in. </p><p>The gratitude in Voldemort's gaze as their eyes met in the mirror left him reeling.  </p><p>"And plenty of toes," Harry continued jocularly. </p><p>"Toes?" Delphini exclaimed, laughing. "Oh, Papa, Harry is a walking, talking Monty Python skit all in himself!" </p><p>"I am surprised that the two of you were not hauled in for trafficking on your travels," Voldemort murmured. </p><p>"They thought I was his daughter," Delphini said brightly. "I suppose we do look alike. Is there Black blood in your family, Harry?" </p><p>"My grandmother," Harry replied. </p><p>Hermione had once said that Sirius and Harry could pass off as father and son, if required. Harry had wanted to run away with Sirius and Buckbeak, to the Cayman Islands.  </p><p>Since Voldemort was struggling with the dreadlocks, as he strived to teach himself to accomplish with nine fingers what he had once with ten, Harry went on to distract the girl.</p><p>"Your father, in his youth, had a striking resemblance to me. I was more handsome. You may take my word for it."</p><p>"How did you-" Voldemort began, puzzled.</p><p>"The Diary, Papa," Delphini answered. "Draco told me."</p><p>Voldemort laughed, chagrined. His cheeks were flushed in mortification and happiness.</p><p>"What is it, Papa?" </p><p>"Tell us. Tell us," Harry pestered. </p><p>"I have never seen the manifestation," Voldemort said. "It was wrought of Abraxas's view of me. All of the horcruxes were strongly influenced by Abraxas's desires, as he held the reins to my magic, as I made them to save him."</p><p>Grief's eternal swansong in him lilted sweet, marked by ash and hawthorn and holly. He wore mourning well, now that he wore joy too.  </p><p>"Are you telling us that what Harry saw in the Diary was the product of Abraxas's wet dreams?" Delphini asked, scandalized. "Papa!" Then she burst into giggles. "Mum said that Abraxas was a dirty hound dog."</p><p>"Your mother thinks Elvis Presley was the only man worth a dime because he could shake his hips." </p><p>Harry was made curious once more. Abraxas had summoned artists to render Voldemort's hands in plaster and oils. Abraxas had hired studs to fuck his lover since he could not due to his physical infirmities.</p><p>There had been love. There had been love enough to sacrifice sanity and soul and magic. There had been love enough for two doomed crusades. There had been love in the ancient forests when a mean spirit knew solace under groves of ash trees. The manor, Draco said, remembered the paeans sung by two in its stone and wood. Saturn's child, and a heart of gold loved Voldemort still. </p><p>"Papa, is it true that Abraxas bought you a movie studio?" </p><p>"He financed films from directors I admired," Voldemort hedged. "He distributed the films. I believe he had had an arrangement with Virgin Records. He convinced Richard Branson to bankroll Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells." </p><p>"Papa, he was buying you record and film studios as Murdoch buys his trophy wives cats and sports-cars and jewelry!"</p><p> It had been a love great and terrible. And yet, Abraxas and Voldemort had worn it lightly together, partaking of each other in the ways they could without shame or reluctance. </p><p>"I made a dismal trophy wife," Voldemort muttered. </p><p>He was surveying his handiwork. The dreadlocks, while not even on the left and the right side of the parting, had come out nicely. There were pink and yellow beads intertwined in the coils. </p><p>"Bang-up job, Papa!" she said brightly. "Harry? O or E?" </p><p>"Outstanding," Harry judged. "Anything that turns you from gorgon to woman is an O in my book, Delphini."</p><p>Voldemort refrained from a smile at the remark, but it lit up his eyes in warm amusement.</p><p>"To bed with you, Headmaster Lestrange," Harry ordered, delighting to see the girl return to herself, after many months. </p><p>Their ordeal of the day had been terrifying, but she had held herself strong and stoic through it, and despite her sacrifices, despite the Castle that had taken her for life, in her father's company, she glowed bright and happy, incandescently sure of how he loved her.    </p><p>She rose to her feet and hugged Harry, kissing his cheek. The wand of hawthorn that had come to him from her turned warm in his hand as it recognized s<em>torge</em>. He brought a hand to ruffle her hair, as of old, but refrained when he remembered how Voldemort had toiled to get the fussy dreadlocks right. He settled for dropping a kiss on her brow. </p><p>"Goodnight, Delphini."</p><p>"Papa-"</p><p>Voldemort's magic enveloped her, steady and soft, in lullaby's embrace.  Grinning, she settled under the pile of Ariana Grande's <em>7 Rings</em> themed blankets the Castle had procured for her. </p><p>"You did not wish me on my birthday," Delphini whispered, peering up at her father who was tucking her in with his customary sailor corners.</p><p>Voldemort sighed and sat beside her on the bed. Taking her hands in his, he pressed his lips to the scars upon them, one after the other. The torment on his features was plain as he forced himself to behold the words. </p><p>"I had to save Harry."</p><p>"I know."</p><p>"Papa," she hesitated. "Even when you told me everything, when I had been a child of eight, I did not hate you. I did not think you a monster." </p><p>"Happy birthday," he wished her, weeping freely. </p><p>She rubbed away his tears, forlorn and stoic, holding him to her. </p><p>"You have wept for me nearly everyday since the pandemic began," she said miserably. "I wish you had not, Papa." </p><p>Then her face drew long in realization. </p><p>"It was not merely the pandemic, was it?" </p><p>He shook his head, wretched and weeping in fate's arms. </p><p>"You knew the Castle's claim on me when I first stepped foot here, in 2019," she stated grimly. "You knew, and Dumbledore knew. Neither of you told me."</p><p>Voldemort and Dumbledore had been in agreement about concealing the matter from her, to let her live in freedom while she could. They had been in agreement about the matter of the Obscurus in Harry, for neither had wanted to solve the problem as hundreds of wizards had solved the problem of Obscurials before, in vile and cruel ways as documented in Wizarding lore.   </p><p>"The coup-" Voldemort began. "I cannot leave you here."</p><p>"It is all right. My place is here now. I have the Castle. I have Harry and Minerva and Severus," Delphini said softly. "Promise me you shan't put yourself in harm's way for me, please." </p><p>His magic acted in lieu of words, embracing her in love's hymns. Sighing, she pulled the sheets to her chest and fell asleep. </p><p>Harry stood at the threshold of the room and watched Voldemort bend to kiss the girl's cheek, and then the scars of hate inscribed upon her hands.</p><p>Elsewhere in the Castle, Snape was mourning Dumbledore. Minerva had remained stoic throughout. Bellatrix had returned to her home. Aberforth had returned to Hogsmeade, after bringing his brother's body in lie in state in the Great Hall. </p><p>"I must return. Griselda will want to discuss the coup with me," Voldemort said softly, when they left Delphini's room and closed the door behind them. </p><p>"Stay the night," Harry said. </p><p>His tone had the heaviness of his desperation not to be alone in this Castle that had easily forgotten Dumbledore and applied herself to pleasing his successor. He did not want to remember all that they had lost since he had watched the sunset at Dunkirk. His desperation, voiced, had the tone of command, he realized to his chagrin. He had not meant to-</p><p>"Yes," Voldemort acquiesced easily. </p><p>------</p><p>Harry led Voldemort to the little attic above Dumbledore's quarters where he had lived after moving out of his Aberdeen flat. </p><p>A torch flickered to life, bidden by Voldemort's magic. </p><p>"<em>Still Alive</em>?" he read curiously, the framed lyrics poster Hugo had gifted Harry that occupied the pride of place. His eyes skimmed quickly the words, before he turned to Harry perplexed. </p><p><em>I feel fantastic and I'm still alive,</em><br/>
<em>And while you're dying I'll be still alive,</em><br/>
<em>And when you're dead I will be still alive</em>.</p><p>"A sentient intelligence not unlike our Castle," Harry said wryly. </p><p>"The Castle is quite pleased by the turn of affairs," Voldemort remarked. He walked to the sole window in the attic. Harry followed him and looked to where he pointed. </p><p>Two stars remained marking Job's Coffin. Two had fallen that day. And about the coffin, resplendent, remained the constellation of Delphinus, despite the gaping void in its heart. </p><p>Voldemort had cut open the girl's heart. Harry and he had broken their wands of holly and yew, and placed the phoenix feathers that had once chosen them in the girl's dying heart. Renewed in magic, she had become interesting to the Castle again, and the sentience had chosen her. In the bedrock, upon that altar of ancient stone, she had been consecrated as the Headmaster wedded to the Castle.  </p><p>As he looked at the constellation, Harry had an epiphany. </p><p>Delphini was not merely Voldemort's fate. She was the fate that the four of the coffin was bound by. Her coming had spelled Dumbledore's end. In turn, it had strengthened Dumbledore to gift his One the death long denied. </p><p>Two brother wands had broken for her. Hawthorn had rooted strong in Harry's magic, by her sacrifice, changing him irrevocably. </p><p>"They fell on the same day," Voldemort said. </p><p>The wistful hope in his voice surprised Harry. Then he remembered what Voldemort had endured for forty years, in loneliness, as one widowed. </p><p>"Then it is not an unkind fate," Harry said gently. Voldemort turned to kiss him. </p><p>After six months, they had turned rusty once more, but they relearned each other swiftly. Harry went gladly when he was nudged towards the cot. </p><p>They lay there holding each other, and above them the two that remained of Job's coffin glowed bright in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. </p><p>"I dreamed of this," Harry admitted, dragging a finger along Voldemort's jaw. </p><p>He had often wanked to the memories of their encounters at Swanage, but what he had longed for was this easy intimacy of touch. </p><p>Emotional expressiveness. Since Dunkirk, facing death or loss turn after turn, he had exhausted his stoicism and reserve, and knew no longer how to withhold speaking of his longing. </p><p>"I did not tell Albus the truth," Voldemort confessed, holding Harry's gaze. </p><p>Harry had suspected that. If their places had been exchanged, would he have done the same?</p><p>"You wanted him to know what a life without guilt meant, at least once before his death."  </p><p>Dumbledore had carried the guilt for Ariana's death since 1899. Aberforth had forgiven him. Grindelwald had refused to pin the blame on him, even if he was the only one that knew the truth. Voldemort could have easily driven the final nail in Dumbledore's heart, but he had not. Instead he had lied, and told Dumbledore confidently that he was not to blame for Ariana's death. Dumbledore had believed him, and had died without carrying the bloodguilt that had lain mantled upon him through his life.  </p><p>Mercy's make was this too, this lie spoken to absolve, this death granted so that two stars may fade together.  </p><p>"I struck Narcissa once with a whiplash hex, when she accused me of harming her sister. I had not-" Voldemort lapsed into silence.</p><p>It had not been Voldemort's curse that had harmed Bellatrix. It had been Harry's, the first Cruciatus he had cast, and he had meant it. </p><p>"I was horrified and furious that Narcissa thought me capable of harming her family. I lashed out at her. <em>I must thank you for teaching me this heart's filthy lesson</em>, she said, bleeding before me, and the manor turned hostile under my feet." </p><p>It had been the only place where he had been loved. It had been his sanctuary, and it had turned against him when he had harmed the woman who had sacrificed her magic for him. </p><p>"I went to her then, and surrendered my wand and agency to her. I left my war in her hands. I left my life and choices in her hands." </p><p>Guardianship.</p><p>Rose tweeted about Britney Spears and the perils of guardianship turned to twisted ends. </p><p>Narcissa had not abused her power. She had not demanded retribution. She had ended the war he had begun, and won for him a world of peace and safety to raise his daughter. Without magic, without political power, without figurehead, she had gifted him victory. She had broken the fetters of prophecy and fate, chaining him to family instead. By exploiting his heart's weakness in the face of <em>storge</em>, she had bound him to Delphini, ensuring that he had a cause to live for. </p><p>Hers the magic that had healed him. Hers the war that was won. Hers the gyves that held him to life and sanity. Hers the hawthorn that had bloomed first on yew.  </p><p>"I am grateful to her," Harry said truthfully, kissing the man in his arms.   </p><p>He was. </p><p>Without Narcissa, Harry would not know <em>storge</em>. The wand of hawthorn he held had come to him trusting, as Delphini trusted him. The Obscurus in him had been vanquished by the girl's sacrifice.</p><p>Without Narcissa, Harry would not know the One. </p><p>"I hesitate to leave."</p><p>"You cannot stay. The Christmas Tuesday Accord-" Harry sighed. "Return to Griselda. Open the diplomatic channels."</p><p>"It is a military coup," Voldemort pointed out. "I doubt they left Fudge alive."</p><p>"They have supporters from other departments," Harry said thoughtfully, remembering how they had addressed Umbridge as the Chief Warlock. "If they were clever, they would have appointed civilian puppet figureheads to key roles."  </p><p>Umbridge had not been a civilian puppet figurehead. Drunk on power, she had brought to bear her sadism upon her victims. Delphini had refused to yield, tearing open her skin with words of hate written in her own blood. </p><p>"I meant to ask," Voldemort said quietly, shifting his head to Harry's shoulder. He sighed in frustration, pressing his mouth to the apple of Harry's throat, striving to find the words for his request. </p><p>Overwhelmed by affection, Harry scooped him close, splaying him upon Harry, with Harry's arms looped loose about his hips. The sudden maneuver startled a helpless laugh from Voldemort, and when Harry kissed his cheek, it was warm in surprise's flush. </p><p>"Ask."</p><p>"I have utterly lost my trail of thought. I cannot hope to focus if you drown me in touch." </p><p>The bareness of that truth was obscene. Harry knew how touch-starved the man was, and how he melted into distracted contentment when held and touched. Harry's long loneliness had left him parched for emotional intimacy and domesticity. Voldemort's long loneliness had left him craving touch.  </p><p>"Let us see if I can incentivize you to regain your trail of thought," Harry teased, drawing a hand down the line of Voldemort's spine in gentle caress. </p><p>Voldemort hummed, eyes falling closed, content to soak in the fell magic of touch. Harry grinned, knowing well that his chances of obtaining answers were nil at this juncture. It felt indulgent, to caress him as Harry pleased. After a few minutes, from the deep breathing against his neck, Harry knew Voldemort was asleep. </p><p>Harry remained awake a good while longer, holding him close, watching through the little window the two stars that remained in Job's Coffin in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. </p><p>------</p><p>In the morning, Harry woke to find Voldemort still asleep. He must not have been sleeping well since Delphini had left after Nat's death, worried for her, and worried for Harry. </p><p>Sighing, Harry summoned his phone. There were summons aplenty. From Delphini. From Snape and Minerva. Many missed calls from Ron and Hermione. It was eleven in the morning. There was a message from Draco, demanding where the fuck Voldemort had buggered off to, since Griselda was hunting for him to decided what to do about the coup in progress across the wall. </p><p>Disgruntled, Harry tucked his phone under the pillow, face down, and silenced it for good measure. Then he kissed Voldemort awake. </p><p>"No," Voldemort muttered, burying his face in Harry's chest. </p><p>"I am sorry," Harry said softly, thumbing away the sleep gathered at the crinkled corners of Voldemort's eyes. "We have been summoned. The perils of being useful, I am afraid."</p><p>How he wished, how he dearly wished, that they were alone at Swanage, with nothing owed to anyone, so that he may keep Voldemort quiescent in his arms, with caresses and soft words. Voldemort's magic was evergreen's lullaby upon others, but it was touch and tenderness that accomplished the same upon him in turn.  </p><p>"When this is over," Voldemort asked sleepily. "When this is over, will you come and live with me at Swanage?" </p><p>This was what he had meant to ask the night before, Harry realized. </p><p>He took Voldemort's hands in his, and kissed his vow sealed upon the knuckles.</p><p>"Gladly," he promised.  </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. A horse with no name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Warning for war-time content, including violence.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you are new, please fasten your seatbelts. The finale may be different from what you are used to. </p><p>If you are not new, welcome back. I hope this brings you fond memories of our old voyages home: Acheron (Catullus 16's finale), Magdhim (Brown Sugar's finale), and Aurvandil (Almagest's finale).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>June 2021</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Voldemort was fiddling with the border controls to Apparate back home. This intense concentration upon the task, to the exclusion of all else including his environs, Harry had only seen in Swanage before. The unguarded, rapt absorption charmed Harry.</p><p>He was unguarded at Swanage because he knew he was safe there. He remained unguarded in Harry's presence, even if they were not at Swanage. Harry had noticed this before, but he had been hesitant to think of the implications. Nobody in their right mind would enter the arrangement they had embarked on, with the history they had once had between them, unless there was irrevocable trust. Voldemort might be reckless when it came to his own safety, but he trusted Harry with <em>Delphini</em>.</p><p>He trusted Harry.</p><p>About them, the portraits of the Headmasters watched Voldemort in avid curiosity. Dumbledore's portrait was bellowing David Bowie's <em>Moonage Daydream</em>.</p><p>
  <em>"I am an alligator</em><br/>
<em>I'm a mama-papa coming for you</em><br/>
<em>I'm the space invader!"</em>
</p><p>"Stop distracting me," Voldemort muttered.</p><p>"You are stealing my instruments!"</p><p>The portrait waved at the spindly glass equipment Voldemort was employing to find a vulnerability in the border controls.</p><p>"You are dead. I am merely putting them to good use."</p><p>There was the clatter of Minerva's sensible shoes on the stairs. She opened the door and took in the proceedings with wry resignation.</p><p>"He killed me, Minerva! Now he is looting the spoils of murder!" The portrait exclaimed, wounded.</p><p>Harry was not the only one to notice how Voldemort's composure slipped for an instant, unveiling loss. Dumbledore's portrait fell silent, moving swift from mischief to regret. Voldemort cleared his throat and returned to fiddling with the glass instruments, standing hunched over the Headmaster's table.</p><p>"Let him be, Albus," Minerva said quietly.</p><p>Harry knew a spike of jealousy when she approached Voldemort to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.</p><p>"Minerva."</p><p>The affection in Voldemort's voice settled uneasy in Harry. Voldemort had spoken freely of how he esteemed Minerva. <em>The finest of our generation</em>, he had called her.</p><p>More than twenty years ago, Bellatrix had taken her captive during the war, a few days before Christmas. That had brought Dumbledore to the negotiating table. He had forced the Ministry to toe the line. The Christmas Accord, and they had raised the wall and crossed wands no more. Two men had come to truce for their love of her.</p><p><em>Minerva knew me then</em>, Voldemort had told Harry once. Minerva knew him before all of it, before Abraxas. Oh, it was not a romantic draw, Harry knew. Yet, he could not help his envy of their friendship steeped in history and mutual affection.</p><p>"Will you stay?" Voldemort asked her gently.</p><p>Minerva had wanted to retire soon after Flitwick's death. Snape had refused to consider leaving Hogwarts, devoted to Dumbledore as he was. Dumbledore was dead. Harry had not considered that Snape and Minerva may leave Hogwarts after Dumbledore's death.</p><p>"Delphini cannot hold the Castle on her own," Minerva replied. "You cannot help her from halfway across the country."</p><p>"You needn't-" Voldemort cut off his sentence. His hand came to twine with hers. "I am indebted."</p><p>"I am not your friend, Riddle."</p><p>He laughed, and the earnestness of his expression caught Harry by surprise.</p><p>"You must not linger. <em>There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.</em>"</p><p>Minerva's expression turned haunted and soft, and she extracted from her cloak a slim book, dog-eared and cherished. <em>The Scarlet Letter</em>.</p><p>"It was a gift," Voldemort remarked, tracing the binding delicately with a finger.</p><p>"It is a gift," Minerva replied, and gave the book to him. "<em>The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where others dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Loneliness! These had been her teachers — stern and wild ones, — and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.</em> You have worn the scarlet letter on your breast longer than I did on mine, Riddle."</p><p>Minerva's love for Alastor had been her ruin once, before she had returned to Hogwarts and Dumbledore. Voldemort's love for Abraxas had been the ruin of their country, and he wore it still on his breast unflinching.</p><p>There had been no tidings from Azkaban. Molly and Arthur had been told that Bill was in an Auror field hospital in Aberdeen. Minerva was soldiering on bravely, as she mourned Dumbledore's passing and Alastor's unconfirmed death.</p><p>She looked at Harry for an instant, before telling Voldemort, "Even the weariest river has found its home. Cast away that scarlet letter you bear brave on your breast, Riddle."</p><p>Harry tensed, worried that the words may provoke an angry reaction from Voldemort. He was surprised, once more.</p><p>"As our Hester," Voldemort said thoughtfully.</p><p>"As our Hester," Minerva agreed. The warmth in her voice was as kindling to his artless smile. He bent to allow her to kiss his cheek.</p><p>"Albus left you his instruments," she said, changing the subject.</p><p>"It was a mistake!" The portrait complained. "I have changed my mind. Set them on fire, Minerva!"</p><p>Laughing, she left the room. Voldemort turned his attention once more to the instruments. Harry hastened after Minerva to speak with her.</p><p>"Any news from the Ministry, Minerva?"</p><p>"Fudge stepped down," she said somberly. Stepped down, or was forced to leave. Was he alive? He had no magic.</p><p>"Percy Weasley is the Interim Minister. He sent his condolences for Dumbledore's death. He means to be present for the new Headmaster's swearing in."</p><p>Percy Weasley. Harry swallowed. Percy had used the pandemic to grab power, exploiting a country in disarray, exploiting that old populist politicians as Fudge had been left without magic.</p><p>"What was filed at the Ministry as Dumbledore's cause of death?"</p><p>"Natural causes," Minerva replied. "Albus prepared the paperwork last week. <em>Death from a clogged heart caused by eating bacon for breakfast everyday since 1895.</em>"</p><p>Albus Dumbledore and his inveterate love of bacon that had done him in. When the world returned to normal, Harry vowed to run a campaign to update Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog Card. Dumbledore would get a chuckle out of it, from the great beyond.</p><p>"Percy has not enquired of the Azkaban incident?"</p><p>Minerva shook her head. Grim-faced, she said, "He will not seek open war, Harry."</p><p>That was Harry's fear too. In this game of subterfuge and slow maneuvering of the public opinion via the propaganda machine, victory would be Percy's.</p><p>Harry was not the figurehead he had once been, but with Dumbledore's death, he knew that the propagandists would turn their attention to him. His evasion of the quarantine restrictions and the border controls, and his liaison with Voldemort, would tarnish everyone in his circle. It would affect the credibility that Minerva, Snape, Ron, and Hermione had in the public forums. Delphini succeeding Dumbledore would further cement the conspiracy theories circling around foreign sabotage of their institutions.</p><p>He made his way to his little room in the attic over the Headmaster's rooms. It was a bright summer's day outside.</p><p>He sat down on the bed and looked up at the framed poster of GLaDOS's <em>Still Alive </em>lyrics. As GLaDOS, Percy had moved from a facade of innocuous goodwill to seizing power. He had orchestrated a coup. Who better placed than him, to effectively remove Fudge and seize control of the Ministry in one fell swoop? He controlled the propaganda machine. He had had nearly three decades to place key loyal figures in various departments.</p><p>Unassuming, clever, underestimated, and driven by ambition, Percy had outmaneuvered everyone.</p><p>------</p><p> </p><p>"Forty minutes," Voldemort murmured, joining Harry in his room. "They have added new wards on the Wall."</p><p>Had Griselda's government added the wards? Had Percy and his ilk added them?</p><p>Were they trying to prevent an invasion or to prevent an exodus?</p><p>Harry had to help Snape coordinate Dumbledore's funeral. He had to help Minerva arrange Delphini's ceremonial endorsement by the Board. He had to speak with Ron and Hermione to understand the state of affairs in the Ministry.</p><p>Forty minutes.</p><p>Their land's ills would not vanish in forty minutes.</p><p>"A shower together before you leave?" Harry asked.</p><p>He smelled of smoke and mildew and incense. Of Azkaban, of the demented boat-ride, and of the Castle's bedrock. Spattered in soot and blood and mud, hardly suitable for polite company, but Voldemort had not complained the night before.</p><p>"You have cobwebs in your hair."</p><p>Ron would have disliked Azkaban. Spiders had reigned there supreme. Perhaps it was for the best that Harry's Obscurus and Bellatrix's pyrotechnics had blown up the island.</p><p>Harry returned to his current pursuit, refusing to think of Azkaban any more. Voldemort had not refused to join him for a shower. Not a no. Not a no was a yes, in the Hermione book of hustling.</p><p>"Come on, then," Harry invited.</p><p>Voldemort's amusement lit warm the corners of his mouth as he followed Harry to the small tiled shower.</p><p>"Delphini demanded singing shower-heads as a child," he said.</p><p>"Pirate sea shanties," Harry wagered, stripping off his clothes.</p><p>"Bloodthirsty ones."</p><p>Draco was a Black. He may have introduced Delphini and Scorpius to Disney, but he had introduced them to the most swashbuckling, supernatural movies in Disney's oeuvre.</p><p>Harry slipped out of his boxers. They smelled funky. His life since Dunkirk had not been kind to his undies.</p><p>Voldemort swore and conjured a ball of white light to float beside Harry's cock, before kneeling to examine it with dispassion that suited a gynecologist more than a lover.</p><p>The sight charmed Harry. He was a goner, wasn't he? What red-blooded gay man would find his lover kneeling before him to peer at his cock charming instead of <em>promising</em>? This was not promising, he knew. Voldemort did not bring spontaneity to sex.</p><p>"The castration charm is irreversible," Voldemort said softly.</p><p>"You read its traces," Harry blurted out, and felt foolish. Voldemort had associated with many prisoners of Azkaban.</p><p>"Abraxas and Albus agreed on little, but they had put forward a joint motion they strived to pass in the Wizengamot, to forbid this barbaric practice. Regardless of who won the war, none of us wished this horror upon each other."</p><p>Umbridge must have voted against it.</p><p>"It did not pass," Harry stated.</p><p>It had not passed. Sirius, Rodolphus. Snape, despite how Dumbledore had fought to spare him.</p><p>Even Harry, forty years later.</p><p>"There was as little support for restorative justice then as there is now," Voldemort said. "Griselda managed to unilaterally undo it when she set forth the new book of laws."</p><p>The northern territories had inherited the old book of laws.</p><p>"There were boys as young as sixteen or seventeen subjected to this barbarism," Voldemort said tiredly. "It had been cruel and unnecessary. Impractical too, if you consider the decline in Wizarding birth rates over the decades. And yet these fools held fast that the children wrought of an evil man's seed were bound to be rotten."</p><p>Delphini was unlike any of them that had warred. Rose and Hugo. Scorpius. Nat Rosier. Periwinkle Greengrass. The generation after the Wall had not been raised in hate.</p><p>"They would beg me to reverse their infertility, again and again, on their knees. I had no inclination to father children, but to see these young lads, head full of dreams of home and family did not leave me unaffected. Albus and I tried."</p><p>In vain. Magic resurrected, but even it could not repair the willfully broken.</p><p>"They resorted to asking their brothers and cousins and friends."</p><p>Begging for seed to impregnate their wives. It was not an uncommon transaction, and it had been made more common by the mass incarceration during the Troubles.</p><p>"I wish this had not been done to you."</p><p>The wealth of sorrow in Voldemort's voice cut.</p><p>Harry refused to think about the pain, about the horrifying violation it had been, even if he had dimly been aware of the possibility after what he had gleaned from Snape and Voldemort about standard operating practices at Azkaban. Barbaric and inhumane, as was most of the Wizarding justice system. Umbridge had gladly let the prisoners die as the virus rampaged its way through Azkaban. Wizards had hunted down and killed Obscurials. What they could not control, they feared. What they feared, they punished. They had hauled Harry in for casting a Patronus to save Dudley from a Dementor.</p><p>When this was over, when all of this was over, he meant to campaign for justice reforms, right after he had ended the campaign to update Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card with bacon.</p><p>"Children," Voldemort said quietly. "I have not asked you before."</p><p>"I had a hand in raising Hugo and Rose," he told Voldemort. "I was keen on children briefly, from when they were six to when they were thirteen. They were troublesome gremlins at all other ages, and I had little desire to have my own after seeing what Ron and Hermione endured."</p><p>Childfree, he had written, in his dating profiles.</p><p>There were other reasons, even if he could not bring himself to divulge them. He had wanted the One to love him and only him. He had craved for belonging and he had had little desire beyond a symphony of two that loved each other to life's end.</p><p>Seeing Voldemort's concern, he hastened to add, "Delphini is a treasure."</p><p>As Captain Barbossa had called his daughter. <em>Who am I to you?</em>, she had asked. <em>Treasure</em>, he had said, before dying for her.</p><p>Delphini had changed him. <em>Storge</em>, she had taught him, was the love of a man for his family. There was nothing Harry would not do for her. He had broken his wand willingly. He would gladly break himself too, if it meant sparing her.</p><p>Dating profiles would winnow out matches based on their preferences to have children. Had Voldemort wanted children? Harry did not think so, but he had been surprised by Voldemort's preferences many a time before.</p><p>"I had not asked you."</p><p>"I wound up fostering Narcissa," Voldemort replied. "Bella and Narcissa tricked me into fathering Delphini. I have no innate drive in this matter."</p><p>Cerebral creature that he was, the impulses towards sex and marriage, and children and house-holding had not been innate to him. He had not been averse, and he had done his best to reshape himself to that mould for the sake of <em>storge</em>.</p><p>Voldemort's sigh was warm on the skin of Harry's thighs. Oh, this man! Harry had to get him up before he poked him in the eye.</p><p>"Up with you," he said, patting Voldemort on the shoulder briskly. "Linger there at your own peril."</p><p>That shook Voldemort from his pensive study. He pressed a swift kiss to Harry's navel and got to his feet.</p><p>"You must like that position very much," he remarked, stripping off and following Harry into the shower.</p><p>Harry exhaled. Emotional expressiveness. He wished he was better at it.</p><p>"You are welcome to give me as many blowjobs as takes your fancy," he said, pulling Voldemort close and beginning to wash him. "My reaction was not to the position. It was to you."</p><p>There, he had said it. In for a penny, in for a pound, he decided, seeing Voldemort lapse into melancholy thought. He knew instinctively what Voldemort was mulling over.</p><p>"I know your sex drive works differently."</p><p>It had taken Harry months to understand this. He had edited many stories for Ron and Hermione with characters across the spectrum of human sexuality. However, fiction had not prepared him to recognize Voldemort's nature at first encounter. Voldemort needed his mind seduced before his body followed. Banter and trust had characterized his dynamic with Abraxas, according to Snape. In Harry's own experiences with Voldemort, their sexual engagements had been preluded by domesticity's conversations and intimacies.</p><p>"It isn't-" Voldemort shook his head, bringing his hands to cup Harry's cheeks, palms tracking light over his beard. "I am drawn to you."</p><p>He was drawn to Harry's <em>mind</em>.</p><p>Harry had dated extensively in both the Wizarding and the Muggle gay community, and his mind had not been part of the offering that attracted others. He had dyed his hair, and worn his Get Lucky jumper, and kept himself trim, and acted suave.</p><p>During the pandemic, he had given up on dyeing his hair, he had gorged himself fat on Voldemort's culinary adventures, and more often than not forgot to shave. Voldemort had not taken notice of Harry's slovenly ways.</p><p>However had Harry's damned mind managed to draw Voldemort's attention?</p><p>"You have been forgiving of my limitations," Voldemort went on. "I am not averse to sex, Harry. I cannot say I experience it as a primary instinct. Were you to lead-" he broke off, to pick his words with care. "I have found myself enthusiastically carried along upon the occasions you nudged us into carnality."</p><p>Abraxas had devoted years to the study of Voldemort's sexuality. Harry had not the benefit of four decades of knowing, but he had this: he had Voldemort willingly speaking of what made him tick, so that Harry did not have to play guessing games.</p><p>The One, Harry had once told Hermione, would meet him half-way to make their relationship work. He had not then known that he would be bloody playing catchup with Voldemort's unflinching honesty when it came to this. Harry had dated all the gay men in Scotland, and it had only taught him to wear a facade over the ugly misshapen pieces of him. He would need to unlearn the programming, as Hugo called it.</p><p>Voldemort moved a palm to Harry's waist, and then curved its path inward towards his cock. Harry found him indescribably lovely in that moment, in his willingness to initiate even if it was an act of deliberation calculated to please another.</p><p>"Thank you for telling me," Harry said gently, catching the hand by the wrist to stay its course. "We will have time for this at Swanage."</p><p>Sex was not unimportant. He wanted to take the time to ensure he could please Voldemort on the occasions he nudged them into carnality. When the pandemic and the coup was done with, he meant to buy himself all the books on Amazon to learn how to draw Voldemort's libido out with wit and banter. First, the mind, and then the body. Harry had not done a shoddy job so far, if Voldemort's contentment with the state of affairs was any tell at all, but he meant to leave no stone unturned in his mighty pursuit. And when he was done, he would have his hooks in Voldemort so deep that it would no longer matter that Harry was not the One.</p><p>"Greying becomes you," Voldemort noted, distracted, running his eyes over Harry's hair.</p><p>"What an easy lay you are! I needn't even dye my hair for you," Harry teased, turning off the shower and dragging them out.</p><p>He suppressed the bright grin that threatened to split his face when Voldemort all but turned deadweight against him as Harry toweled him down. Wound fraught by tenderness, he cupped Voldemort's cheek, and pressed their brows together. Voldemort shifted to kiss the core of his palm, where lines of fate had been drawn again.</p><p>Thirty-eight minutes.</p><p>"Off with you."</p><p>"I am glad her wand came to you."</p><p>The sincerity in Voldemort's voice was stark. <em>The children of evil men</em>, he had said earlier, when discussing the Ministry's enactment of justice.</p><p>"She takes after you," Harry told him frankly. "She has your bloody-mindedness."</p><p>And naivety, though in her it was tempered by the pragmatism she had inherited from her mother's side.</p><p>"She stood at the crossroads I did, and acted wiser than I had."</p><p>"You refused to let her take that path," Harry pointed out. There had been tears of blood upon the stones of Delphi, when Voldemort had stood fast in his resolution not to allow the girl to bind herself to a dying man as he had done long ago.</p><p>Thirty-nine minutes, Harry's stopwatch app said.</p><p>"Go on," he said. "When I return to Swanage, I expect a splendid spread awaiting me. A feast worthy of a King!"</p><p>"A feast worthy of Harry."</p><p>Dumbledore was dead. Harry was alive and healed because of Delphini's sacrifice. He had broken his wand. He had been castrated. He had helped Voldemort wed a young girl to a sentient castle. There was a coup in progress. The prisoners of Azkaban had been left to die in the pandemic's ravages.</p><p><em>A feast worthy of Harry</em>.</p><p>Voldemort had cooked for <em>him</em>. He had not invited Harry to his table in generosity and friendship, as the Weasleys did. It had not been duty, as the House Elves undertook. It had not been cruelty, as the Dursleys had wrought.</p><p>From the beginning of Harry's stint at Swanage during the pandemic, Voldemort had cooked for him. How long, how long, how long had Harry not seen the plainness of their truth?</p><p>"The sleeper hath awakened."</p><p>At wit's end, at world's turn, all Harry could muse upon was the soft victory in Voldemort's gaze at having landed the parting shot in their exchange.</p><p> </p><p>-----------</p><p> </p><p>Harry trudged up the stairs to the office. The gargoyle had let him enter without a password.</p><p>In the office were assembled Delphini, Minerva, Snape, and Aberforth. On the Headmaster's table was the Sorting Hat. There was Dumbledore's Pensive, filled with memory. There was a scroll, furled and sealed. Fawkes was nowhere to be seen. The spindly glass instruments lay fallow. The portraits were watching the proceedings keenly.</p><p>Dumbledore's portrait was empty.</p><p>Snape fared the poorest. His eyes were sunken in sleepless grief. Harry was grateful that he had not taken his rage out on Delphini.</p><p>"We were waiting for you," Minerva said quietly.</p><p>They delved into the memory together.</p><p>It startled Harry to see Dumbledore in memory's flesh beside him.</p><p>Dumbledore walked briskly towards the ruins Harry had seen in dream and vision and form before. The skies were veiled above him. Only Saturn remained visible, watchful and alone. Voldemort was waiting for him upon the cracked stones of the ancient temple of Delphi.</p><p>"Thank you for coming," Voldemort said, in a stilted and determined tone.</p><p>For Delphini. He would only drag himself so utterly out of his depth for her.</p><p>"You sent for me," Dumbledore said pleasantly, standing six feet away, with a neon Bubblehead charm on him.</p><p>"The Castle does not want me."</p><p>"She wants a spouse, not a son. You know this."</p><p>Voldemort's magic the Castle recognized as familial. She would never take him as Headmaster.</p><p>"She is killing you. I can extend your lifespan," Voldemort offered.</p><p>Dumbledore sighed and looked up at Saturn. There he stood, bulwark, oaken brave-heart, and the loneliest man in the world.</p><p>"My magic will alleviate your loneliness," Voldemort went on. The desperation in his voice was plain. "You know it will, Albus. My magic has alleviated Harry's plight."</p><p>"The Obscurus is grounded by your magic, you say?" Dumbledore laughed. "Tom, you are not one to exist in denial. The Obscurus is grounded by your magic, because you love."</p><p>The visitors in the Pensieve were staring at Harry as if he were a particularly exotic exhibit. He swallowed and kept his gaze affixed on Dumbledore.</p><p>Voldemort must have run out of words. He was not one to engage in spirited debate unless he knew he was safe in trusted company. In Dumbledore's presence, he wore no joy.</p><p>"I bonded my magic to Abraxas before he loved me," he said quietly.</p><p>"A bond of slavery." Dumbledore's tone was reproving. "A foolish and reckless act I advised you against."</p><p>"I offer you the same," Voldemort said. "Have my magic. Live. Spare Delphini."</p><p>Dumbledore's face fell. Sorrow lit his bright-blue eyes, and on heaven's tapestry Jupiter rose to meet Saturn in conjunction.</p><p>"As Lily," he said softly.</p><p>"Do you wish me to beg? Now? Publicly? Do you wish to bury me alive in a coffin of stone? Do you wish me dead? Do you wish to break my wand and send me to a sanatorium to live out my days? Do you wish me raving mad and turned out on the streets to be spat upon and left to mob justice? Have of me what you will."</p><p>Dumbledore turned away. He perused the ancient pillars and the cracked stones, the broken seat of the prophetess at the navel of the world and the shed python skins that ringed the periphery.</p><p>"I warned you that Abraxas would cast you aside when he married. He would not have been the first Pureblood to take a kept boy. Instead, he turned himself into your sanctuary. He held your magic for four decades without harming you."</p><p>Even in memory's silver, Harry felt the sweep of mourning's evergreen that rippled through the night.</p><p>"The girl cannot be saved from her fate, Tom. The Castle will have her," Dumbledore continued. "Your sacrifices or mine shall be in vain, were we to seek another path." He softened. "She will be content. Every previous Headmaster that held the Castle knew contentment."</p><p>"She is twenty-five!" Voldemort exclaimed, pacing. "Is there nothing I can offer you, Albus? You have wanted me begging at your feet since 1941."</p><p>"She will be content," Dumbledore said steadily. His words were a declaration.</p><p>"You were not content," Voldemort argued. "You were lonely, Albus."</p><p>"On the contrary, it was when I wedded the Castle that my loneliness receded. How could I be lonely there, with her magic and yours intertwined in mine?"</p><p>"It is my blood that has marked her fated," Voldemort said, grieving. "If she were not mine-"</p><p>"Tom, she is our fate. All our fates." Dumbledore cast a spell with his wand, and the skies cleared, unveiling Job's Coffin in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. "Firenze saw this."</p><p>"I have no use for prophecy."</p><p>"You did once," Dumbledore said lightly. "Tom, this is not prophecy. This is <em>fate</em>."</p><p>Voldemort looked up at the stars and frowned. "Two grow dimmer."</p><p>"Dim, to ember, to fall, to vanishment."</p><p>"You wish me to end Grindelwald's life," Voldemort said. The horror in his gaze was stark. "You wish me to be his mercy."</p><p>"You remain the cleverest fool I have known. So hasty to jump to conclusions."</p><p>Voldemort stilled in his pacing. Shocked, he turned to face Dumbledore.</p><p>"I wish you to be my mercy," Dumbledore stated solemnly.</p><p>Voldemort's gaze swept to the wand of elder Dumbledore held. His shoulders stooped as if burdened abruptly by what he discerned.</p><p>"I have no war left in me, Albus."</p><p>"There is nobody else."</p><p>"Severus-"</p><p>"He cannot wrest its power to his bidding. You know what it has cost me. Our magic has been entwined in the Castle's for many decades. You know the heaviness that has cloaked me."</p><p>"From the day you returned from the war," Voldemort assented. He looked to the stars again. His voice was desolate and grim as he mused, "There is another, carven in the constellation."</p><p>Harry. He meant Harry.</p><p>"And will you let this fall upon him?"</p><p>Voldemort shook his head.</p><p>Dumbledore beamed. "Ah! What a splendid day it is, that you and I see eye to eye."</p><p>Voldemort did not reply, lost to his contemplation.</p><p>"It shall not come to grief, Tom. When I die, my magic will feed the Castle, leaving her replete for at least a century or two. Delphini need not be bound to stone's whim as I was, as the others were."</p><p>Voldemort did not reply, lost to his contemplation.</p><p>"I must return to the Castle," Dumbledore said wearily.</p><p>"Have you cast the Killing Curse before?" Voldemort queried, shaking himself out of his musings.</p><p>Dumbledore's face was lined deep with sorrow. He shook his head.</p><p>"If you could not kill him then, in war's wake, what gives you the assurance you can in cold blood, after eight decades?"</p><p>"This is the least I owe him," Dumbledore murmured. "I must be his mercy. <em>That poor wretch who cannot, cannot love: he bears a load which nothing can remove, a killing, withering weight.</em>"</p><p>"Harry speaks of the One," Voldemort said carefully. "I cannot claim to understand this in entirety, but I know I cannot be his mercy, no more than I could have been Abraxas's."</p><p>"You may find victory's pleasure in my plight, then."</p><p>"Love ruined me," Voldemort said bitterly. "What hate have I left for you, then or now, when everyday I cast myself upon a sword of my own make?"</p><p>He waved at the cracked stones and the ruins they stood in, in raw denouement. The ruins of the temple at the navel of the world were the ruins of him.</p><p>"There is no victory in this, Albus. There never was."</p><p>"I wonder if you have been more fortunate than I," Dumbledore mused. "Narcissa wreathed you in her victory's laurels. A horse with no name, she led home from the desert, out of the rain."</p><p>"There is no victory in this, Albus," Voldemort reiterated. "Delphini treads the path Narcissa walked, to save another."</p><p>"Delphini is Harry's fate, Tom. It is not the other way around." Dumbledore waved at the stars. "Four at the heart of her, bound to a coffin of her make."</p><p>"The wand will go to Harry one day, if that is the fate you describe."</p><p>Dumbledore was weighed down by a withering, killing sorrow, and he said truthfully, "Harry will not survive the loss of the One."</p><p>Harry remembered how Voldemort had spoken wistfully of the two stars that had fallen together from Job's Coffin. A wish they shared then, that theirs too might be an ending wrought together.</p><p>Dumbledore reached out with his magic's bright blue, transcending the barrier of distance and protective spells. Voldemort met him in a swathe of evergreen. On the skies over their heads, Jupiter rose slow over Saturn's graceful descent.</p><p>Silver whirled away, at memory's end.</p><p>Harry stood with the others in the Headmaster's office. Minerva cleared her throat and went to the scroll, and perused the instructions Dumbledore had left behind.</p><p>"The Board wishes to swear in the new Headmaster," Snape informed them.</p><p>Harry went to him, in silent support. He must have wept through the night. Snape had been Dumbledore's man, through and through.</p><p>"She must be Sorted first," Minerva said. "Delphini, place the Hat on your head."</p><p>"Draco told me all about this," Delphini said, with her characteristic brightness of spirit. "He said that the Hat talks! He also said that-"</p><p>"For goodness's sake, girl, have the decency to damp down your glee when we are in mourning," Snape cut in.</p><p>Delphini had mourned Nat Rosier. She had endured Azkaban, and had nearly died giving her magic to save Harry.She wore fingerless gloves of leather that covered the backs of her hands. The hateful scars engraved into her skin were hidden.</p><p>Voldemort had bound her to a Castle, shattering open her heart and placing two brother wand cores to pump life into her. She had taken to her lot, forgoing family and friendships to live in a Scottish castle away from all that she had known.</p><p>Before all of that, she had been a healer who had seen hundreds die senseless deaths in a pandemic.</p><p>"Let her be, Snape," Aberforth cut in. "My brother would have liked her spirit."</p><p>He spoke the truth. Dumbledore's temperament in life had been akin to Delphini's. Great sorrows had he endured, only to strive to find joy once more in everyday.</p><p>Harry went to place the Hat on Delphini's curly mop of hair. She startled as the Hat began to converse with her.</p><p>"Delphini may have overtaken Harry's record for the longest Sorting," Minerva said, as they waited for the Hat to declare its verdict.</p><p>"Slytherin!" The Hat called out finally, after a good many minutes had passed.</p><p>Delphini sighed in relief.</p><p>"Argued with the Hat, didn't you?" Harry grinned knowingly.</p><p>"Draco said the Hat takes preference into consideration! It wanted to place him in Hufflepuff."</p><p>Harry had not known that. Draco was devoted to his family.</p><p>"Where did the Hat wish to place you, Miss Lestrange?" Aberforth asked curiously.</p><p>"It said I had the makings of a Gryffindor," Delphini muttered. "A split decision, it claimed."</p><p>The wand cores! It must be the wand cores! Minerva nodded to Harry in agreement. Delphini was his. Delphini was his too. Bellatrix had stepped away from the ritual; she had known what it portended and she had allowed Harry to stand in her place.</p><p>"Albus left you this," Snape grunted, giving Delphini a box.</p><p>A wand.</p><p>Elm. Unyielding. Ten inches.</p><p>"The tree of Oneiros, in Greek myths," Aberforth said. "Oneiros was the son of Night, and the God of Dreams. To the Greeks, the elm was the tree of sleep, dreams, and death, a psychic wood that favored those the oracles saw in smoke and star."</p><p>Delphini's was the fate that bound four in the stars of Job's coffin. She had been born of her father's tears of blood offered to the cracked stones of the ancient temple of the oracle of Delphi.</p><p>"The first woman, <em>Embla</em>, they say, was born of an elm tree," Minerva added.</p><p>"What is the core?" Harry asked.</p><p>He knew the answer, before Snape spoke. Delphini met his gaze sadly in knowing.</p><p>"Phoenix feather."</p><p>Two wands of phoenix feathers had broken to give her renewed life and magic. Elm and phoenix feather.</p><p>The wand of hawthorn suited Harry, but he missed dearly that wand of holly and phoenix which had carried him safely through three decades. Voldemort had not spoken of their broken wands, but Harry had seen him fall to his knees when his wand shattered.</p><p>Hawthorn was Snape's wand. The wand of a healer. Harry had not healed anyone. Would this wand come to find him unworthy one day? <em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>, and only hawthorn remained.</p><p>"Elm is not a healer's wand," Delphini said wistfully.</p><p>"No," Snape concurred. "It is a wand that protects the idealists and the faithful."</p><p>"In the Muggle world, elm was the symbol of political revolution, for the French, for the Greeks, and for the Americans. <em>Liberty Trees</em>, they called them," Minerva told them.</p><p>"Deep-rooted, ancient, the elm protects and succors all that shelter under its canopy," Aberforth pointed out.</p><p>A few strands of white marked Delphini's curls. They had not been present mere months ago. Sorrow and exhaustion had come to burden her, to draw lines upon her brow, to age her before her time.</p><p> </p><p>-------------</p><p> </p><p>Delphini stood in the amphitheater alone. Board members and Hogwarts staff ringed her, six feet apart from one another, wearing their Bubblehead charms.</p><p>Andromeda Tonks. Remus Lupin. Ron and Hermione. And several older board members who refused to shuffle off the mortal coil.</p><p>Percy Weasley had arrived with a contingent of fresh-faced Aurors. He wore his customary ingratiating and sombre expression, the manner of a man who placed duty above all. War was not his way, Minerva and Snape had held. He had the power he craved. He would now move to consolidate it. Harry feared. Percy's ambition was unbounded.</p><p>"Your name," the scribe to the Board asked.</p><p>"Delphini Narcissa Lestrange."</p><p>The older Board members eyed her suspiciously. Andromeda Tonks stared at her as if she were vermin. Professor Tofty was gauging her with keen interest.</p><p>"Your mother's name."</p><p>"Bellatrix Black Lestrange."</p><p>"Your father's name."</p><p>Ron and Hermione leaned forward, in anticipation. Percy's eyes were sharp as a hawk's. Andromeda's expression could have curdled milk.</p><p>Delphini faltered. Harry gripped his wand of hawthorn and tried to channel his magic in an embrace to envelope her. Her shoulders remained tensed. A gloved hand went to clasp at the stone about her neck.</p><p>"Rodolphus Lestrange."</p><p>All hell broke loose, as Andromeda called her a liar. Many others on the Board supported Andromeda's claim vocally. Percy said nothing.</p><p>Minerva intervened. "Severus, the Veritaserum."</p><p>Delphini held out her tongue for a drop of the truth potion. Swallowing, she faced the Board again.</p><p>"Your father's name," the scribe demanded.</p><p>"Rodolphus Lestrange."</p><p>The donor was merely a footnote, in the legal framework. Voldemort was not her father, in any court of law or inheritance deeded by bloodline. She was a Lestrange.</p><p>Her face glistened pale, displaying her unease and worry.</p><p>"You are his spawn!" Andromeda spat. "Snakechild forced on my sister! He made her a whore, before he made her your mother!"</p><p>Delphini flinched, but she did not reply.</p><p>"Miss Lestrange, if you could cast the Patronus Charm," Professor Tofty suggested gently.</p><p>"A Patronus?"</p><p>"A Patronus would prove that you are not practicing Dark Magic," Remus Lupin told her.</p><p>She blinked at that, surprised.</p><p>"She is a Healer, Remus," Hermione intervened. "Many in her line of work have needed to employ the Cruciatus to save wizards and witches afflicted by the virus, by instigating inflammation to help their magic fight off the disease."</p><p>Harry had stepped before a Marrow Dissolving curse, to spare her. Voldemort had healed him, and had mentioned that the curse was used in cancer treatment.</p><p>"Expecto Patronum!" Delphini shouted, eyes bright and fierce, and her wand of elm cast its first spell of power.</p><p>A barn owl, matching Harry's Patronus, soared from her wand to encircle them, mighty of wing span. Sweat broke out on Harry's brow as he watched the avarice on Percy's features.</p><p>"Well, that is cleared then!" Ron declared.</p><p>"The Castle has chosen you," Minerva read the words of the contract.</p><p>Sentient magic rose from the stones, as smoke, as power.</p><p>"I choose the Castle." Delphini's voice did not waver, despite her pallor.</p><p>The wind in the amphitheater was unnatural.</p><p>Ghosts of the Castle emerged, Myrtle and Nearly Headless Nick and the Baron and many others.</p><p>"No wife nor husband, no child nor sibling, no duty nor whim may take precedence over your oath of fealty to the Castle," Minerva handed down the oath.</p><p>Creatures of the Castle, and of the Forest, and of the Lake, from House Elves to poltergeists to mermen to thestrals to centaurs to giant spiders to unicorns to the Squid, spoke their will with a single voice, with the voice of the Castle's magic.</p><p>"In life, I shall hold the Castle. In death, my magic shall be yielded to the Castle."</p><p>The specters of Headmasters dead and gone rose soft as rings of shade in the Castle's blue that spun a vortex about Delphini. The brightest was the azure of Dumbledore's magic, potent and unforgettable. At the center of these spheres of magic was the will of the Founders. The soft yellow of Helga's warmth, the cold grey of Rowena's intelligence, the fierce red of Godric's courage, and the bittersweet green of Salazar's ambition tempered by wisdom.</p><p>"Salazar's magic has not come to the swearing in of a Headmaster before!" Professor Tofty exclaimed, surprised.</p><p>Percy Weasley's gaze was fixed on Delphini in calculation.</p><p>There was no denying then, crowned as Delphini was by brilliant green, where her lineage lay. The Castle had been held by the pact of a Headmaster and Heir for decades. And the sentient magic in her had claimed blood price to unite the Founders again in her heart.</p><p>"So it is true," Remus said quietly.</p><p>Harry kept a wary eye on the Aurors. Minerva and Snape were equally watchful.</p><p>When Delphini opened her eyes, they were colorless. She staggered, clutching her heart, as if stabbed. Harry made to rush to her, but Snape held him back.</p><p>From her mouth no words came, but light poured, evergreen marked by holly's red.</p><p>"The Castle has chosen," Minerva declared.</p><p>"The Board accepts the choice," Professor Tofty said. The rest of the Board, even Andromeda, spoke <em>ayes</em> in endorsement.</p><p>Hawthorn blossoms formed a wreath that descended on her brow, as the Castle wed the girl as blood price, as at last Salazar's betrayal was forgiven in the bedrock.</p><p>The magic vanished, the stones turned fallow beneath their feet, and Harry went to Delphini, bracing her as she reeled from the withdrawal of the Castle's sentience. She wound her arm in his, tired, a gorgon made maiden again.</p><p>"Tattoos," he promised her, striving to cheer her up.</p><p>"Owl tattoos?" she asked weakly.</p><p>"Owl tattoos," he swore.</p><p>"Allow me to congratulate you, <em>Healer</em> Lestrange," Percy Weasley said obsequiously, approaching them, sketching a bow.</p><p>"Thank you, Minister Weasley."</p><p>"Interim Minister," he corrected her with a humble grin. "Merely a temporary arrangement until Minister Fudge returns."</p><p>Delphini's hand was clammy in Harry's, but her expression was schooled to perfect courtesy.</p><p>"As a gesture of goodwill from the Ministry to the new Headmaster, permit me to gift you these papers of safe passage across the border. It would be cruel to part you from your family."</p><p>She thanked him profusely and accepted the papers. Harry refrained from sighing in relief when Percy took his leave.</p><p>"It will be all right, Harry," Delphini said softly.</p><p>Had Dumbledore known?</p><p>Percy was a dangerous adversary. Griselda was experienced, and Minerva and Snape were confident that it would not come to war, but Harry feared that they stood at abyss's edge.</p><p>Ron and Hermione, and Remus were bustling over.</p><p>"I have read your books! I am an avid fan, Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley," Delphini greeted Hermione and Ron. "<em>The Song of Hoof and Poof</em> is the sole reason why I am literate!"</p><p>That took the wind out of their sails. Chuffed, Hermione and Ron gladly fell into a discussion with Delphini about the merits and demerits of slowburn unresolved romantic tension versus fuck or die plots. Harry moved to Remus as they began debating the validity of inclusive messages in interspecies romance when written by cishet writers. Delphini had a great deal to say. Harry had not known she cared passionately about romantic erotica.</p><p>"She is young," Remus remarked. The gentle sadness in his voice betrayed his pity.</p><p>Young and married to a sentient castle. She dreamed of love. Unlike Narcissa, Delphini was not without interest in the romantic.</p><p>"How is Teddy? How is Tonks?" Harry asked, changing the subject.</p><p>Remus sighed. "Her depression worsened during the months of the lockdown. I shall be relieved when we have received our vaccination potions."</p><p>There had been no research done yet on the effect of vaccination potions on werewolves, vampires, hags, centaurs, or House Elves. Their death rates had not flattened yet. Tonks should have been eligible for a potion. She was an Auror, working on the frontline. She should have been eligible, unless-</p><p>"She is pregnant," Remus confided. "Andromeda says that melancholia is common in the women of their family during and after pregnancies."</p><p>Bellatrix had been afflicted by postpartum depression. Voldemort had been Delphini's caretaker while Rodolphus and Narcissa saw to Bellatrix. Melancholia was in the Black bloodline, Voldemort had said. He had pressed flowers for Narcissa when she had been a lonely and depressed child struggling with the pall of the Scottish winter. His magic grounded Delphini. When the Obscurus had been wresting for control, feeding on Harry's loneliness and misery, Voldemort's magic had been balm.</p><p>"What do the Healers say?"</p><p>"Hermione is right that there will be a mental health pandemic following this pandemic. The Healers understand ailments of the body. They are yet to acknowledge that emotions play a part in our well-being." Remus sighed. "They sent her home with a coloring book and crayons."</p><p>Harry's therapist had given him one of those too. And had asked him to journal.</p><p>"Does it help her?"</p><p>"No. Only the mood regulation potions have, and she fears to imbibe them while she is with child."</p><p>There was little research conducted on the well-being of pregnant witches. Minerva and Hermione railed at the discrimination in Ministry funding grants when it came to the minorities or the disenfranchised, including women.</p><p>"Harry!"</p><p>It was Hermione, waving him over. Ron and Delphini were in deep discussion with Professor Tofty. Harry nodded to Remus and went to Hermione.</p><p>"She is a brave girl," Hermione said, her eyes on the alien finger stitched to Delphini's left palm. "She reminds me of you. I can see why you took to her."</p><p>Harry opened his arms to embrace her. Shock seized her for a moment, before she ran to him. They held each other, for the first time in more than a year. Burying his face in her head of hair, he hugged tightly as she sobbed. Ron's face was a study in sorrow as he caught sight of them. Harry cried too, for he had not dared dream of holding Hermione again, remembering every time they had sought each other only to be separated by social distancing spells and protective shields.</p><p>He dug around in his pockets for a kerchief. One of Dumbledore's, of silk, embossed with depictions of marijuana leaves. He mopped Hermione's face tenderly. There were dark circles about her eyes, and crow's feet settled deep into the grooves of her face.</p><p>"Stay alive," she ordered Harry, in between sniffles. An old refrain that she had not spoken since wall's raise, since war's end.</p><p>"I am at Hogwarts," he replied gently. "The Castle carries on, despite what the mad world does outside."</p><p>Another pair of arms closed about them. Ron.</p><p>Worried, Harry looked around for Delphini. She was with Aberforth and Snape, illustrating something or the other with her expressive hands. She had her father's hands.</p><p>Snape had protected Harry for decades. Delphini was safe in his company. Harry let himself know a sliver of peace, held by his friends.</p><p>"There are lines of fate on your palms," Ron remarked, surprised.</p><p>"That is not your wand," Hermione chimed in, scrutinizing the hawthorn Harry held.</p><p>"We have to discuss the coup," Ron said.</p><p>"Do you think that Percy had anything to do with your arrest and imprisonment?" Hermione worried. "Perhaps Umbridge was acting on her own?"</p><p>It had been more than a year. Harry didn't want to-</p><p>Seeing Harry's silent plea, they ceased their queries and held him.</p><p>-------------</p><p> </p><p>The funeral was a sombre affair. Dumbledore would have loathed it. They buried him under a beech tree he had planted at the turn of 1900.</p><p>"Beech was Grindelwald's first wand," Aberforth told Harry.</p><p>"What was Dumbledore's first wand?"</p><p>"English Oak."</p><p>Oak and Beech, the King and Queen of the Forest, from winter's solstice to summer's solstice.</p><p>There stood an oak tree in the courtyard of Nurmengard. Had Dumbledore buried his One under the oak?</p><p>-------------</p><p>Harry tracked Snape down to Classroom Sixty-Four, where he found Snape staring down the sentient and frothy mass that grew in the Creevey Cauldron.</p><p>"Is that safe?"</p><p>"No," Snape answered.</p><p>He was drinking alone. Harry slumped down against the wall beside him. Drinking straight from the bottle. Dumbledore would have approved. Snape passed him the bottle. It spelled the end of the pandemic, this sharing, Harry thought, though it was poor consolation to mark the occasion alongside a funeral. Auchentoshan, misappropriated from Minerva's cabinet.</p><p>"She is young and empty-headed," Snape muttered. "The Castle will make mincemeat of her. Albus waged a daily battle to rein in the Castle's sentience."</p><p>Dumbledore had said that the killing, withering weight on his shoulders was guilt. The One buried alive in a coffin of stone, the Castle, the wand of elder: what hadn't Dumbledore borne alone?</p><p>"You would have been a wiser choice," Snape continued. "Even <em>he</em> would have been a choice more apt."</p><p>Delphini was Bellatrix's daughter. She had in her the all-devouring loyalty that Narcissa, Draco, and Bellatrix displayed towards their own.</p><p>Elm, the protector.</p><p>As the world turned, as they came to pandemic's end, in the middle of economical disaster and political instability and the fraying of the Statute of Secrecy, it was clear to Harry why the Castle had chosen one to succor her.</p><p>Dumbledore was a mighty warrior. Delphini defended what was entrusted to her. Neither Voldemort nor Harry had strength left in them to wage war again.</p><p>Snape knew all this.</p><p>"You know why she was chosen," Harry admonished him. Then he understood why Snape protested. "You pity her."</p><p>"The oracles of old were maids sent to dark caves, and there they became crones, steeped in wisdom and strength, without knowing the arms of a man," Snape said gloomily. "That was Narcissa's life. A child raised in a home of the blues, and she turned herself a crone ensconced alone in a mausoleum. Hers the war that was won, and hers the bitter loneliness of victory." Snape shook his head, forlorn and grim. "I cannot wish that upon Delphini, Harry. She does not deserve this."</p><p>There had been no other path left to take. Harry threw back a mouthful of Scotch and closed his eyes. The world was a smaller and darker place after Dumbledore's death, and their lives a quiet bleakness muted without Dumbledore's cheerful perseverance.</p><p>"We must see her through," Snape continued, setting aside despair for resolve, as he had done at every strike of tragedy. His voice softened as he said, "I knew that hawthorn would be yours one day."</p><p>Harry turned to him, surprised.</p><p>Snape hesitated, wavering, before nodding to himself as if he had come to a decision.</p><p>"During that fortnight, you offered your generosity and kindness, to a man made bitter and cruel by two wars and his own nature," Snape told him.</p><p>The gratitude in his voice was a soft-spun warming thing. Tears stung Harry's eyes at the honesty in Snape's words.</p><p>"A lion-hearted lad, who had nothing of his own, and yet he gave away himself freely. Your generosity of spirit emboldened me. I had feared to seek Minerva, after twenty years of rejection. I sought her once again, with renewed resolve." Snape sighed. "I knew then that hawthorn would come to you one day, for it is hawthorn that heals the broken heart."</p><p>Snape's hand was gentle as he used his sleeve to mop the tears on Harry's cheeks.</p><p>"Those two weeks," Harry confessed. "Those two weeks I clung to, during the two decades that followed."</p><p>He would not have been able to admit this mere months ago.</p><p>"He has changed you."</p><p>Voldemort's cutting honesty had changed Harry, for how else could Harry hope to meet him in the middle?</p><p>Emotional vulnerability had not been Harry's forte, or Snape's, when they had stumbled into bed for two weeks after the end of the war. They had wounded each other with word and scorn, tripping over guilt and resentment, and it was a surprise that their relationship had not irreparably soured afterwards. There had been good too. Harry had clung to that inchoate memory of belonging and trust for two decades. Snape had found fresh resolve to pursue Minerva after a long wait of two decades.</p><p>"You are content," Snape noted.</p><p>He was.</p><p>"I cannot even bring myself to resent that I am not his One," Harry said wryly. He had feared this lot once. He had wanted to be the One to the man that met him as an equal. "I understand Firenze now."</p><p>"Balderdash!" Snape dissented. "Your lot is as far from Firenze's as mine is from Mad-Eye Moody's!"</p><p>Harry glanced at him quizzically.</p><p>"Harry."</p><p>Snape calling him by his name twice in the same conversation. What had the world come to?</p><p>"You cannot be as ignorant as this!" Snape harangued, returning to their comfortable rapport of tirade and counter-tirade. "The wands, Potter. The sacrifice of your wands would not have saved Delphini, unless you were equals in the emotion you bore each other."</p><p>Voldemort had attempted to command Harry to desist, during the ritual, but Harry had acted on impulse, from his heart. Had Voldemort feared that Harry's love would not equal his? Or had he feared it might be the other way around?</p><p>"The heart of her that beats now is the pact of your love."</p><p>The world righted itself to Harry. It had been the right way up all along, perhaps, and he had been the one dwelling upside-down.</p><p>Their pact had found its living harmony in Delphini.</p><p>He opened his right hand. On his palm, clean crossing each other in a X, were two new lines of fate. He knew that if he were to examine Voldemort's palm, the lines would find their mirrors.</p><p>The One.</p><p>Voldemort had not told Harry, leaving him to meander in the dark. Harry knew why. Voldemort had chosen him, and he had wanted to be chosen in turn. He did not wish Harry to assign their resonance to magic's compatibility or to the paths drawn in the stars. He wanted to be the choice Harry had proudly made, in the bright of day before the world that watched them.</p><p>Dumbledore had known. He had left Harry to fumble along to the end, to find the answer that was emblazoned bright on skin and star and heart.</p><p>Snape caught Harry's palm and examined the lines.</p><p>"<em>Gebô</em>, the rune that means a gift born of exchange and sacrifice and sacred union," Snape told him softly. "It is equilibrium, long-lasting, deep-rooted."</p><p>A gift born of exchange and sacrifice and sacred union.</p><p>"The tree associated with <em>gebô</em> is the elm."</p><p>When Harry wept, Snape was there to hold him.</p><p>---------------</p><p>The will was written with Dumbledore's customary panache.</p><p>He bequeathed his NFTs to Minerva, including the Beeple NFT artwork he had bought in an auction for sixty-nine million dollars.</p><p>"What am I to do with these?"</p><p>Harry shrugged. He knew more about NFTs than he wished he did, thanks to Voldemort's spirited monologues on non-fungible tokens.</p><p>Dumbledore left his books, of which many were first edition folios, to Aberforth.</p><p>"He did not read any of them!" Aberforth complained. "He hoarded them so that I might make the trudge up here to borrow them."</p><p>Dumbledore left his sock collection to Snape.</p><p>"I could boil them in lye and bleach them, and then dye them black," Snape speculated.</p><p>Harry would not be surprised if Dumbledore had placed protective measures to ensure Snape remained stuck with garish socks.</p><p>To Harry, he left a book of poetry. Shelley.</p><p>On the blank page that prefaced the poetry, Dumbledore had written in his loopy hand.</p><p>
  <em>One word is too often profaned. You and I have longed for it, as night seeks the morrow, as moths drawn to starlight. May you know the One in exaltation, away from this sphere of sorrow.</em>
</p><p>To Delphini, Dumbledore had left a long list of instructions. There were leaks to be fixed. There were cracks to be repaired. The centaurs wanted a cull of the bow truckle infestation. The mermen believed that 5G would hijack their brains. The Squid was incontinent. Trelawney might or might not be cooking drugs in her tower. Then there was the matter of Classroom Sixty-Four, where Snape was experimenting with the sentient froth in the Creevey Cauldron. The pandemic was running unchecked through the legion of House Elves.</p><p>"I don't think Dumbledore did any upkeep for a while," Delphini muttered, as the parchment unscrolled to twenty-five feet.</p><p>"He wrote on the other side too," Snape said wryly.</p><p>Minerva sighed and went to rap on Dumbledore's portrait. He blinked awake, and beamed at her.</p><p>"The school endowment, Albus."</p><p>"Safe in the cryptovault!"</p><p>"Professor Dumbledore, I don't know anything about the Castle or about the endowment!"</p><p>"I wouldn't worry, Delphini. You know as much as anyone else in this room who is not a portrait."</p><p>"That is comforting," she said wearily. "Professor, we haven't filed taxes since 1944."</p><p>"Blame your father. He kept me occupied."</p><p>Dumbledore winked at her, and went back to sleep.</p><p>"Is the school bankrupt then?"</p><p>"That Beeple NFT should keep us afloat for decades, Minerva," Snape pointed out, ever swift to defend Dumbledore. "And we merely need find this... cryptovault."</p><p>Minerva made a strangled sound.</p><p>"I think I shall get started with the easiest one on the list," Delphini said brightly, restoring herself to optimism as was her way.</p><p>"Perhaps the incontinent Squid?" Snape suggested.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>July 2021</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"She is settling in," Harry told Draco.</p><p>He was sitting beneath the giant beech that overlooked the Lake. Delphini was speaking to the Mermen, gesticulating wildly, as they discussed a solution to the most vexing matter of the incontinent Squid.</p><p>Snape was set up by the lakeshore drawing samples for experimental assays. He found Squid piss particularly riveting as a potions ingredient and there had been no dearth of it.</p><p>Minerva was ensconced in a wicker chair, enjoying the lazy afternoon, with a book in her hands, dressed in summer's plaid. <em>Georgics</em>, Harry read the title of her book. There was a paisley picnic umbrella propped over her head.</p><p>On Delphini's phone, a metal music playlist were playing merry <em>War Pigs.</em></p><p>
  <em>"Generals gathered in their masses!</em><br/>
<em>Just like witches at black masses,</em><br/>
<em>Evil minds that plot destruction!</em><br/>
<em>Sorcerer of death's construction."</em>
</p><p>"Her taste in music is abysmal," Draco complained.</p><p>"She said she inherited it from you."</p><p>"I blame Severus. He plied me with CDs of Black Sabbath when I was a child."</p><p>Harry had a recurring weekly meeting with Draco to exchange news. There was a time long ago when they would have both rather fucked a Pygmy Puff than speak to each other politely, far less look forward to their conversations.</p><p>The times, they had changed.</p><p>"The students are returning in September, aren't they?" Draco asked. His voice filtered tinny in Harry's iPad speakers.</p><p>In his Herman Miller desk, with the bright sunshine pouring in from the window behind him, he had a quirky halo about his head that lent him a resemblance to a balding angel. Harry was reminded of Jon Hamm playing Gabriel in <em>Good Omens</em>.</p><p>The Ministry and the School had cut a deal. Delphini had agreed to reopen the school if Hogwarts was given a quota of potions to cover all the House Elves and the Centaurs of the Forest. Reopening the schools was the highest priority item on the Interim Minister's agenda. The vials were to arrive at Hogwarts in two weeks.</p><p>"We should have a confirmation in a fortnight," Harry told Draco.</p><p>"How is the new wand suiting her?" Draco enquired.</p><p>Harry hesitated.</p><p>"Healing spells," he said finally, after wondering for several moments how to tell Draco without worrying him. "The wand of elm is not conducive to healing."</p><p>"It must be as losing a part of her," Draco murmured.</p><p>It was. Every time she attempted a healing spell that had once come naturally to her wand of hawthorn, only to find the elm wand obstinately refusing to carry out her spell to perfection that had once been her provenance in healing, her crestfallen face tore Harry's heart.</p><p>Gloved, with white hairs multiplying on her mop of black curls, with lines marring her forehead, worn and in mourning's black, Delphini went about her days, purposefully keeping herself occupied and distracted so that she may not have a moment's allowance lest she lapse into grief. A maid made crone before her time, married to a Castle.</p><p>"Mum is hosting her midsummer's party on the thirtieth."</p><p>Voldemort had said that he would come to convey Delphini to Wiltshire the night before. She would proceed to spend a few nights split between Wiltshire, the Lestrange cottage in the Cotswolds, and Voldemort's home at Swanage.</p><p>Harry meant to join Voldemort on the thirty-first, and then return with Delphini to Hogwarts at the end of her trip.</p><p>"Is she still wearing those dratted gloves everywhere?"</p><p>"Yes," Harry said sadly.</p><p>In summer's noon, she stood chatting with the Mermen, cutting a silly picture in her fluffy white linen dress, straw hat, sandals, and black leather gloves.</p><p>"Do you mean to stay at Hogwarts when the school reopens in September?"</p><p>Ron and Hermione had pestered Harry about this. He meant to stay, for Delphini's sake. If the Board demanded that he make himself useful, he could teach Charms as a substitute until Delphini managed to hire someone.</p><p>"Yes, I mean to stay," Harry answered.</p><p>"There is early evidence that the assassination attempt on Madam Marchbanks which claimed Nat's life has links to a faction in the Interim Ministry of the Northern Territories," Draco confided. "I am glad that you shall be with Delphini."</p><p>The complex political situation that Griselda and Voldemort were navigating with the Interim Ministry in the Northern territories required walking a fine line between calling the coup illegitimate and totalitarian, and ensuring that the supply of glass for the potion vials was not interrupted. Delphini's safety had added another layer of intricacy that the strategy councils in Griselda's government debated furiously about. While few knew the value of her as a political hostage, Griselda had been forced to disseminate the information among her counsel after it had become clear that Rufus Scrimgeour knew her connection to Voldemort.</p><p>Voldemort was stressed, despite how he endeavored to hide it from Harry and Delphini. While Harry wished to join him in Swanage, he knew that staying with Delphini at Hogwarts was critical, given the unstable political situation and the murky coup that neither the papers nor the broadcast media reported on.</p><p>The restrictions on social assembly in places of gathering as pubs and sporting events, the dismantling of the Floo network, and the harrowing fear of loss of magic, death, and economic penury that the general population was suffocated by everyday: this constituted a perfect storm for the coup.</p><p>In a strange turn of events, all that the media reported on was the pandemic and the emphasis on returning to normal life. The economy would be rebuilt. Jobs would be created. Businesses would reopen. The children could return to school. The Interim Ministry's approval ratings were at an all time high. There was no mention of the destruction of Azkaban. There was little mention of Fudge.</p><p><em>A September to Remember</em> was the propaganda promise on the Ministry placards plastered over boarded up shopfronts and in giant adverts taken out in the front page of newspapers.</p><p>----------------</p><p> </p><p>"Hugo has been called in to work at Fred and George's," Ron told Harry.</p><p>"Business looking up again?" Harry asked, surprised.</p><p>"Contracts from the Magical Law Enforcement department, Hermione speculates."</p><p>Arms and armaments. Explosives. Fred and George had had a booming business during the second war.</p><p>Domestic pogroms? War with Griselda? What was Percy's intent?</p><p>"Any news of Bill?"</p><p>In Harry's nightmares, Bill had died in flames at Azkaban. The Ministry, and Percy, had stated unequivocally that Bill and the other Aurors were recovering in Aberdeen in a field hospital, after a mission gone awry.</p><p>"None," Ron said somberly. "Mum and Dad mean to conduct a memorial service in August, on his birthday."</p><p>Hermione and Snape held that Bill must have been in the know, for the coup. Bill would not have been at Azkaban if Umbridge and Percy had not trusted him with their plans. Harry had not interacted with Bill in many years, outside chats at the Weasley Christmas table. As a schoolboy, he had considered Bill and Charlie the epitomes of cool.</p><p>"What about Fred and George?" Harry asked Ron softly.</p><p>"Trust nobody," Ron said, made cautious and pragmatic by long years of war and peace. "Until we understand the depth of the coup, trust nobody, Harry. The economy has been in tatters for more than seven years now. Many decent witches and wizards have motive to overthrow the government. The papers have been selling a nationalist propaganda of us-versus-them, about the government in London being the reason why we are not prosperous."</p><p>Harry had stayed out of social media, away from Facebook and Twitter and other platforms, because he had had enough of virulent hatred exercised upon a freak in a cupboard, upon a boy who could speak to snakes, upon a Triwizard champion who had upstaged the favorite, upon a boy who had managed to live.</p><p>Divisiveness, the seeds of which had been sown by Voldemort and Dumbledore long ago, had festered through the decades of peace, and Percy had fanned the flames with media propaganda and subversive policy-making.</p><p>War required hatred. Hatred required division of us against them. Division required propaganda that painted a group as <em>other</em>.</p><p>The Jews, Harry and Delphini had heard on the audio-guides during their walk through Nuremberg, had been portrayed as subhumans who were <em>other</em>.</p><p>----------</p><p> </p><p>"Treacle tart," Harry told Delphini, as she picked at her dinner again. "The finest treacle tart in the world."</p><p>"Papa makes it better."</p><p>"Riddle would be horrified to see you wasting away. Eat up," Minerva ordered.</p><p>"I want bacon."</p><p>Delphini had developed a newfound liking for bacon. She had preferred her meat spicy, before her coming to Hogwarts. During their trip through the Continent, she had often dumped the bacon on her plate to Harry's.</p><p>"Bacon?" Snape asked darkly. "The Castle's mood swings are starting to affect you."</p><p>Epiphany shone bright in Minerva's eyes.</p><p>"Albus claimed that the Castle liked bacon."</p><p>Harry had thought that was an excuse to justify Dumbledore's fondness for bacon. The change in Delphini lent credence to Dumbledore's assertion.</p><p>----------------</p><p> </p><p>"No, I am not lending you <em>another</em> set of robes. What happened to the last six I lent you? For goodness's sake, Potter!"</p><p>"Severus, be a dear," Minerva admonished.</p><p>"I don't want to be a dear," Snape muttered, but he skulked off to unearth yet another set of black robes. "It is not my fault that Potter cannot shop for himself and needs to steal another man's robes to be presentable before his beloved!"</p><p><em>Beloved</em>. Snape meant it in dark sarcasm. And yet, how the word spoke to Harry! Minerva's smile was fond as she realized where his thoughts had fled to.</p><p>"What is it?" Snape asked suspiciously, noticing their silent exchange. "What did I say?"</p><p>"I am glad that we are the same height," Harry said cheerily, as he donned the robes in haste. The fabric stretched tight across his belly and chest and arms.</p><p>"Gained a few pounds, haven't we?" Snape assessed. For dramatic effect, he twirled on his heel, showing off how neatly the lines of his robe draped him.</p><p>"Careful, or I may have to steal you from Minerva."</p><p>"Take him," Minerva said pleasantly. "I could use a vacation."</p><p>"Two weeks?"</p><p>"Recorded observation of his homosexual forays testify that two weeks is the expected duration of his relapses."</p><p>"Bloody buggering hell!" Snape muttered. "I refuse to stand here and be maligned!"</p><p>"Be a dear," Harry teased him.</p><p>Minerva's shield charm came in the nick of time to bat away Snape's attempt to transfigure Harry into a ferret.</p><p>---------------</p><p> </p><p>Harry went to see if Delphini was prepared for the trip home.</p><p>She was seated before her mirror, drying her hair with a fluffy towel. Taylor Swift's <em>cardigan</em> played on her phone. Harry moved to take the towel from her and began drying her hair.</p><p>"I wanted a phoenix feather wand as a child," she murmured.</p><p>As the one her father had carried.</p><p>"Papa was lonely," she continued. "He carried loneliness as a second skin. I thought, if I had a wand akin to his, it might alleviate his alienation."</p><p>She smiled softly, eyes faraway. "I held my wand of hawthorn for the first time as a girl of ten, and could not for the life of me imagine myself exchanging it for another. It was as if a missing part of me had been found, and I was made whole."</p><p>"What did you want as a child, Harry?"</p><p>To leave his cupboard. Family that did not hate him. Food. He had been starving and frightened. He had not known on some days what his name was, for he had become used to answering to <em>Freak</em>.</p><p>He had been lonely.</p><p>"As a child, I wanted loneliness's end."</p><p>Delphini fell silent, pensively studying him in the mirror. Her hands flew to the stone about her neck, a nervous tic that betrayed her whenever she thought of her father.</p><p>
  <em>"And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed</em><br/>
<em>You put me on and said I was your favorite" </em>
</p><p>"He saw this before I did," Harry said tiredly, looping his arms about Delphini's shoulders and kissing the crown of her head.</p><p>Voldemort had been patient. He had not forced the matter. Harry wished that he had seen it earlier, at Swanage, while they lived together. The heaviness of lost time plagued him.</p><p>"Harry, he had been loved once. He knew to read its make, in magic."</p><p>"I wish he had told me."</p><p>The resentment in his voice surprised Harry.</p><p>Delphini sighed and twined her fingers in his.</p><p>"Mum once told me that Papa wanted to be loved for who he is. He feared that I loved him <em>despite</em> who he was."</p><p>That old refrain of choice again. Voldemort did not wish to be loved because of blood relation or fate or circumstance. He had wanted to be chosen.</p><p>"Your father is a demanding bastard."</p><p>A demanding, prideful, stubborn bastard with unrealistic expectations about how love worked for gay men in the modern world.</p><p>"Takes one to know one," Delphini said sweetly.</p><p>---------------</p><p> </p><p>The midsummer's moon was full. An owl flew across its yellow, swooping mid-hunt. Old Harry Rocks stood sentinel over the placid seas.</p><p>He walked up the coastal path, from the sandy shore to the cliffs upon which was perched to the west a homely home.</p><p>Beds of lavender and delphinium greeted him. Sighing, he ran a hand over the plants, and then swore as sharpness cut his fingers. A shrub of holly, errant in the flowerbeds. A breeze rustled through the mighty canopy of the ash tree, and swept hawthorn blossoms askew over the cobbled path.</p><p>The door opened to him.</p><p>In the armchair by an unlit hearth, he found his waiting heart.</p><p>He knelt before the man and kissed him awake.</p><p>"Harry. I laid out a cold supper."</p><p>Voldemort must have fallen asleep waiting for him. In the bright of moonlight, Harry could see the form of his limbs through summer's flax.</p><p>"Aren't you a sight?" Harry cupped his face.</p><p>Voldemort did not grace that with a reply, turning to kiss the core of Harry's palm, right upon the center of where lines of fate crossed each other.</p><p>While Harry could have lingered gladly, in kiss and caress, Voldemort tugged him up and led them to the kitchen.</p><p>There was a feast laid out. A feast for Harry.</p><p>He opened his mouth to speak, but found that he had no words at his bidding.</p><p>Voldemort nudged him to the table and clattered about lighting the lamps and fetching bottles of Kölsch and Stangen glasses.</p><p>Fennel and radicchio salad, with summer herbs and parmesan. Dates wrapped with bacon and stuffed with sheep cheese. Butterflied leg of lamb with honey, lavender, rosemary, and fromage blanc. Fresh-baked sourdough.</p><p>"You must have toiled for hours over this," Harry breathed, knowing how Voldemort loathed employing magic in his culinary gambits.</p><p>Voldemort, for once, was eating instead of picking at his food as was his way when he dined with Harry or Delphini. His appetite was nonexistent. To see him partake was a first.</p><p>Harry realized why.</p><p>"Did you starve yourself?"</p><p>"A water fast," Voldemort murmured, eyes bright in mischief. "The bloggers rave about it."</p><p>"Delphini calls it a toxic myth perpetuated by privileged suburban mums," Harry noted. "How many days?" he asked, worried.</p><p>Voldemort pointedly served himself another helping of lamb.</p><p>"Oh, fine! Be evasive! I am going to tell her."</p><p>"I wished to eat with you."</p><p>That took the wind out of Harry's sails. This was not over. He would pick up the battle in the morning. He glowered and clinked his glass of Kölsch to Voldemort's.</p><p>"I have seen crack addicts with stronger appetites," he muttered.</p><p>Voldemort did not deign to reply. Harry knew instinctively why his appetite was nonexistent. Starvation and malnourishment in his childhood had left Harry with strong emotional reactions to scarcity of food. Voldemort had taught himself to thrive on scarcity. It had been a test of will once, perhaps. It had then become habit.</p><p>Harry had to admit to himself that he found pleasure in watching Voldemort savor the act of eating.</p><p>"There is dessert," Voldemort said brightly, swift to discern what had caught Harry's interest.</p><p>"You are a terrible influence."</p><p>Voldemort laughed and kissed Harry. His mouth tasted of lamb and fennel and Kölsch.</p><p>The cake was of elderberries, wrapped in buttercream, decorated with fresh flowers. Lavender. Violets. Bishop's lace.</p><p>Harry pulled Voldemort to him.</p><p>"That seems inadvisable."</p><p>It was not a no. He patted his thigh again.</p><p>Voldemort's expression was torn between exasperation and mortification, but he let Harry drag him into his lap, shifting close to brace himself against Harry's chest, when Harry scooped him by the arse.</p><p>When Harry caught his hands, he saw they were stained purple, from elderberries. The stems, Harry remembered from his potions classes, were toxic. Voldemort must have removed them manually, with his customary painstaking attention to detail.</p><p>"I set out spoons," Voldemort protested, though he dipped his mouth to suckle cake and cream from Harry's fingers.</p><p>And when Harry kissed him, elder married sour and sweet on their tongues.</p><p>"I see that you are pleased by your birthday feast," Voldemort said, breaking away to catch his breath.</p><p>"It could be improved."</p><p>"Pray, enlighten me."</p><p>"Oh, but I am a man of action."</p><p>---------------</p><p> </p><p>In the carmine of midsummer's dawn, Voldemort's insensate sprawl on their bed was of Harry's enthusiastic make.</p><p>"All right?"</p><p>"I shall live," Voldemort replied, and the tired smile dancing at the corners of his mouth Harry had to kiss away.</p><p>He brought a thumb to Voldemort's neck, to trace the marks of his teeth that spanned the skin as a circlet. A collar, he imagined, before shoving away the vision deep in the recesses of his perverted head. His editing of Ron's and Hermione's erotica had given him a taste for the unrealistic.</p><p>"I am not averse to it."</p><p>That was the problem. Voldemort must not have refused Abraxas any game of eroticism. Harry knew that he would not be refused too. Voldemort's interest was in intimacy, and he found it easily in these games as he found it in tender caresses, as long as he was in the arms of a lover.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Harry said gently, "Perhaps on a special occasion."</p><p>Abraxas had protected Voldemort from the dark whorls and eddies of gay relationships that diluted the lines between sexual and the non-sexual, with arrangements of power in the bedroom seeping into daily lives. Harry meant to be as careful as Abraxas had been once.</p><p>Taking Voldemort into his arms, he said, "I hope you are not averse to a name I have grown fond of."</p><p>"A name?" Voldemort asked, shifting about to make himself comfortable.</p><p>"A name for you."</p><p>Voldemort turned still in his arms. A sweep of evergreen, startlingly lovely, surrendered and imbued with holly's flowers, came to Harry, cradling him.</p><p>"Name me, then."</p><p>Harry caught Voldemort's hands in his own, and pressed his lips to the fingertips stained purple by elder.</p><p>"The One."</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>August 2021</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"I think I draw the line at elderflower tea," Harry said wryly, as he mopped up the last of the perfectly poached egg with soda bread. "What brought this about?"</p><p>Voldemort was flitting about the kitchen, preoccupied with summer flower arrangements in the vases. The beige of his flax robes faithfully showed the lines of him as sunlight washed through the weave. Harry had been satiated after their night together, but he found himself taking an ardent interest in the delightful vision.</p><p>"The wand," Voldemort explained. "I have been attempting to court the wand."</p><p>Court the wand? Harry was baffled. The wand of hawthorn he held had come to him easily. His wand of holly had accompanied him faithfully for three decades.</p><p>He tried to remember if he had seen another wand of elder. Dumbledore had won it from Grindelwald in their duel. Harry had assumed that elder was a common wand wood in Eastern Europe.</p><p>"Tell me about the wand," he asked Voldemort.</p><p>"I know little," Voldemort said. "The elder tree, in ancient Anglo-Saxon and Germanic lore, is associated with the spirit of a crone that lives in the tree. To cut down an elder is to bring upon yourself the wrath of the crone. <em>The Elder Tree Mother</em>. Wand-makers avoid elder, because of their fear of the tree spirit's vengeance."</p><p>This wand of elder that had come to Voldemort from Dumbledore, and to Dumbledore from Grindelwald, was haunted by the spirit of a crone that had lived in the tree cut down by a wand-maker long ago.</p><p>"The wood is associated with the first moon of autumn, when summer departs and the earth returns to barrenness. Death. Regeneration. Transformation."</p><p>Death. Harry swallowed. He had felt Death's magic in that boat, when Bellatrix and he had seen Delphini's life waning, as she lay stripped of magic.</p><p>"Elder was the first tree of the forest, they say, in a time when wizards were immortal. A wizard cut the elder down for wand wood, and the spirit of the crone that woke from its heart, thirsting for vengeance. Her, we know as Death."</p><p>"A Wizarding equivalent of the Bible's original sin that saw Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden and condemned to live mortal lives in suffering," Harry said lightly.</p><p>Voldemort hummed, sipping his elderflower tea.</p><p>Who was Harry to gainsay him? As long as his courting rituals were innocuous, limited to tea and cake and cordial, Harry did not see cause for concern.</p><p>The doorbell rang, disrupting their morning quiet. It was followed by a bang and a flash, and Bellatrix ran to them. There was blood on her sleeve.</p><p>"Where is Delphini?" Voldemort demanded.</p><p>"They are burning down Galashiels. I need to marshal the army," she said sharply.</p><p>Voldemort buried his head in his hands.</p><p>War.</p><p>War had come to them.</p><p>"Delphini?" Harry urged.</p><p>Bellatrix scowled and said with her customary bluntness, "She is at Fortescue's Ice Cream parlor. Voldemort, track down Griselda."</p><p>"All right. Go on, Bellatrix," Harry said. "I will bring Delphini here."</p><p>"Very well," Bellatrix said briskly. "If the Ministry falls, take her to Hogwarts."</p><p>"I hoped it would not come to this," Voldemort murmured.</p><p>"Enough," Bellatrix barked.</p><p>Red flashed fierce from her wand. Voldemort leapt away in the nick of time. The curse bounced about and shattered the teapot.</p><p>"Elderflower tea?" Bellatrix demanded. Her clever head put two and two together. She sighed in exasperation. "Secure the Ministry."</p><p>As she made to leave, she yelled, "And take your wand with you!"</p><p>She vanished in a poof of oily, black smoke, dramatic even on war's eve.</p><p>Harry checked his pockets. Invisibility Cloak. Emergency healing potions. A port-key to safety. His wand. Phone. He wore the robes he had borrowed from Snape. They were of heavy wool, with all manner of protective spells woven in, suited for battle. Snape was a paranoid spy who had not thawed in the decades of their peace.</p><p>"Get her to the Castle," Voldemort said quietly. "She will be the safest there."</p><p>The Castle would safeguard from harm her chosen one.</p><p>"Wear your duelling clothes," Harry said.</p><p>"I don't have any," Voldemort replied with a wan smile.</p><p>Why would he have battle-clothes? He had left behind war and ambition, to raise his daughter. His clothes were of flax and flannel, for what need had he for battle's cambric and wool and leather?</p><p>Harry made to speak, worried, but fell silent when Voldemort kissed his brow in leave-taking.</p><p>-------------</p><p> </p><p>"Harry!"</p><p>Delphini waved to him when she saw him enter the ice cream shop. Periwinkle Greengrass was seated across her. The shop was empty, for nobody sensible sought ice-cream at half-past-ten in the morning.</p><p>Harry raised his wand, alarmed, when he saw that the stone was missing from her neck.</p><p>"What is it, Harry?"</p><p>She rose to her feet, face drawn in worry. Periwinkle threw something at her.</p><p>Delphini screamed as she vanished into thin air. Harry's stunning spell hit Periwinkle. She fell through the glass of the window-pane as it shattered into smithereens.</p><p>Harry cursed. Voldemort would have immediately sensed the girl's distress through the bond with the Castle. Without the stone, they had no way to track her down. A trap. She was a valuable hostage, and one that everyone knew the importance of.</p><p>"Harry Potter!"</p><p>Fortescue came running from the back of the shop, wand raised.</p><p>"Close the shop! Raise the wards," he ordered Fortescue. "Now!"</p><p>Fortescue scrambled to do as he had been bidden. Harry's battlefield voice was still effective, he mused darkly.</p><p>He turned his attention to Periwinkle. Imperius? What had been done to her? It did not matter then. He needed to find Delphini before Voldemort was lured into the trap.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, he revived Periwinkle.</p><p>"Legilimens!" he roared, before she could wake to full lucidity.</p><p>Snape had not succeeded in teaching him Occlumency. Harry's mind was an emotionally turbulent hell-scape, Snape had held. It did not matter, when his resolve firmed in <em>storge</em>.</p><p>Periwinkle's mind was indomitable. Slabs of concrete met him. The wand of holly was a warrior's wand. Hawthorn healed, and it shirked away from the mental violence he sought to harness.</p><p>Harry had once been called a Dark Lord's equal. He pushed forward through the wand's resistance, channeling his own magic with raw force of will. Chinks cracked through the concrete, and Harry saw Percy. He surged forward, though he was bleeding from the ears, though Periwinkle was screaming. <em>The last enemy that shall be conquered is Death</em>, on a gravestone.</p><p>Harry staggered away. Periwinkle was screaming, pulling at her hair, and she wept tears of blood.</p><p>"Why did you betray her?" he asked her bitterly.</p><p>He knew. Oh, he knew!</p><p>It was an old story. Peter Pettigrew. Maria Edgecombe. How many times had he seen this tale?</p><p>"She belonged," Periwinkle whispered, scrambling for her wand, getting to her knees to curse Harry.</p><p>"Expelliarmus! Accio!"</p><p>What did she know of war? She had been raised in a time of peace. Spite was not skill. Spite was not courage.</p><p>Her wand came to him.</p><p>Holding her frightened gaze, he broke it. She gasped as the connection between witch and wood severed.</p><p>"Harry," she whispered, stricken.</p><p>"Go home," he advised her, taking pity on the bleeding, kneeling, broken girl that hated another who belonged. "Give yourself up as an informant. It will protect you. Tell the Ministry what you know."</p><p>"You cannot save her," Periwinkle spat, hatred surging in her anew.</p><p>He threw on his Invisibility Cloak and Apparated away, holding in mind's eye the gravestone.</p><p>Screaming and jeering laughter. He landed in a graveyard on a patch of delphinium. There was a church adjoining the graves, and the bells tolled for the midday prayers of Sext.</p><p>Harry picked his way through the graves towards where there were a group of men standing in a circle.</p><p>Peverell.</p><p>He paused at a familiar name.</p><p>Ariana Dumbledore.</p><p>This was Godric's Hollow.</p><p>And he knew, with crystal-clear surety, whose grave Delphini had been taken to.</p><p>He cast a muffling spell on his footsteps and hurried to the throng of men. Sixteen. He assessed them swiftly, taking in their postures and stances. Five Aurors, of the new Ministry, trained, but inexperienced in skirmishes. The rest were Death Eaters, he realized in grim despair. They were veterans of two wars.</p><p>He climbed Ariana's tomb carefully to gain a higher vantage point.</p><p>They had tied Delphini to the gravestone of the Potters. She was bleeding and bruised, her hair askew, but her eyes were bright in defiance.</p><p>The man standing closest to her, Harry recognized from the Daily Prophet spread more than two decades ago, about the Azkaban breakout.</p><p>Dolohov.</p><p>"Your father would appreciate poetic justice. What do you say, Delphi?"</p><p>She did not reply, pale-faced and brave as he spat on her.</p><p>"You weaken him. We would have won the war if your whore mother had not spread her legs for him!" He yelled. "Crucio!"</p><p>The gravestone shattered and she screamed once again.</p><p>"Enough!" Another man called out. Rowle. "We must not linger, Antonin. Begin the ritual!"</p><p>Dolohov nodded grimly.</p><p>"A living child, wrapped in an enemy's bones," he declared, and the sixteen men cast in unison.</p><p>The tomb shattered, and Harry saw his parents' bones bleached white lying six feet deep in the wet earth. He clutched his wand close and desperately waited for an opening.</p><p>They sank her, bound and screaming, into the grave, and restored the tomb over her.</p><p>The pandemic had taught Harry to perform one spell well and wordlessly. Silently, Harry cast a Bubblehead charm on the girl as earth and stone covered her.</p><p>"Ash, for the heart of gold once sanctuary," Dolohov chanted.</p><p>A stave of ash was planted on the grave.</p><p>"Hawthorn, for the rose that built the house of the rising sun," Dolohov continued.</p><p>A stave of hawthorn was planted on the grave.</p><p>"Holly, for the One at beginning's end," Dolohov finished.</p><p>A stave of holly was staked through the grave.</p><p>Together, they began chanting.</p><p>"With blood, with will, we invoke, with truth, with strength, we invoke, with-"</p><p>"Expelliarmus!" Harry directed at the nearest wizard, breaking their invocation circle.</p><p>He did not know what the ritual was to bring to fruition, but it boded ill. Blood from sixteen wizards. Staves of ash, hawthorn and holly. A living child buried in the bones of two who had defied Voldemort thrice. He dearly hoped his wand of hawthorn was up for a skirmish. Perhaps he should have courted the wood.</p><p>"Aurors!" called out the alarmed renegade Aurors.</p><p>"Voldemort!" Rowle yelled.</p><p>"Potter!" Dolohov shouted. "It is Potter! He has the Cloak!"</p><p>"Accio Potter's Cloak!"</p><p>It did not work. Snape could have told them that.</p><p>"Sweep the graves with the Cruciatus!" Dolohov ordered. "In pairs! Potter is a cunning adversary. Rowle, Thicknesse! Guard this grave."</p><p>Dolohov had studied him. He knew Harry would not leave without the girl. Harry ran, keeping to the cover of the tombstones, reminded of another graveyard he had once desperately zig-zagged through in a bid to escape the Cruciatus. Stone and wood shattered about him, and his reflexes saved him more than once as curses landed within inches of him.</p><p>"Come out, Potter!" Dolohov commanded. "Come out and duel us, Potter!"</p><p>Sixteen on one? Did Dolohov think Harry <em>mad</em>?</p><p>"I have undone the Bubblehead charm, Potter," Dolohov shouted. "I have been gracious. Never let it be said that I am not gracious. I have given her an oxygenation charm for twelve minutes. Come out and duel us, if you wish to save her!"</p><p>Twelve minutes. Was he lying?</p><p>Harry did not have the time to contemplate. He cast stunning spells and petrifying charms in wild arcs, spinning and moving as swiftly as he could so that they could not pinpoint his location, ducking and weaving through the arcing light of their spells. Something tugged at him, a hand, pulling at his cloak.</p><p>"He is here!" A young Auror shouted. "He is here!"</p><p>Harry cast a cutting charm, but it was too late. A flurry of stunning spells came his way. His shield charm held, but he had lost the advantage of invisibility. Ceding ground steadily, he found himself backed to Ariana's tombstone.</p><p>"Look death in the eye, Potter!" Rowle jeered.</p><p>Harry, twenty years ago, would have met that taunt with defiance. He could not afford to, in the present. Ten minutes, and Delphini's oxygen would run out. He needed to end this.</p><p>"Avada-"</p><p>"Avada Kedavra!" Harry shouted.</p><p>Hermione had often envied how quick he was on the draw. Rowle fell back, eyes vacant in the flash of green.</p><p>"Kill him!" Dolohov screamed. "Kill him!"</p><p>"Protego Diabolica!" Another man yelled.</p><p>Rodolphus Lestrange.</p><p>Blue flames rose in a circle about Harry, and the fifteen that sought to kill him perished in the magical fire, screaming and disintegrating in unnatural manner. He had heard of this spell before. Grindelwald had used it in his duel with Dumbledore. It protected those allied to the caster. Dumbledore had walked through the flames, for he had loved the man he had dueled to defeat.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Harry walked through the flames. They did not harm him. He rushed to his parents' grave and cast spells quickly to raise stone and soil.</p><p>Delphini was blue in the face, her expression a rictus of terror.</p><p>He raised her with magic out of the grave, from the pile of bones and skulls once buried there, and laid her gently upon the wet earth.</p><p>Rodolphus joined him, kneeling beside him, as Harry cast resuscitation spells. The wand of hawthorn knew his intent, and gracefully lent itself to the cause, reviving the girl.</p><p>"Dad!" She tried to sit up, but light-headed, collapsed once more. Harry caught her. "Harry!"</p><p>She turned swiftly, to look at the massacre in the flames, drawn by the unmistakable stench of burning flesh. The horror in her eyes made Harry remember that she had not seen war before.</p><p>"Dad-"</p><p>The staggering disbelief in her voice as she turned to Rodolphus, accusing and frightened, would have felled another man. Rodolphus had seen war before. His expression betrayed no emotion.</p><p>"Take her to the Castle, Potter."</p><p>"The Ministry?" Harry asked Rodolphus, frightened.</p><p>"Temporarily secured. He does not have the garrison to hold it through the night. The treachery in the heart of the Aurors is widespread."</p><p>Bellatrix had gone to marshal an army. Harry had to trust her. She was terrifyingly competent when it came to war.</p><p>"Dad, I am sorry," Delphini whispered. "If only I had-"</p><p>"We didn't raise you to doubt and hate."</p><p>Harry looked away as Rodolphus embraced Delphini and kissed her brow, as they spoke tender words of care to each other. In the Potter grave, bones lay desecrated, disturbed from their rest in peace. Taking a deep breath, he covered the tomb and repaired the gravestone as best as he could. The wand of hawthorn mended the broken seamlessly.</p><p>Delphini's hand crept into his.</p><p>He summoned to him his cloak of invisibility and Delphini's wand of elm.</p><p>"Try not to lose your wand again," he warned her, handing it over. She turned to conjure a wreath of lilies for the Potter grave.</p><p>"Hold the Castle," Rodolphus told them. The grim solemnity in his face painted a bleak prognosis. "The Castle must not fall."</p><p>"The Castle will not fall," Delphini promised.</p><p>Then she looked to Harry, lost and young, and asked softly, "How will we return?"</p><p>He took her hand in his, and Apparated them to the Hogsmeade, to the pub Aberforth kept. A goat Patronus encircled the periphery, watchful. There were Aurors patrolling the streets.</p><p>Under the cover of his cloak, Harry led them to Aberforth's door. He rapped softly.</p><p>"Harry, Delphini!" Aberforth glanced to where the Aurors were chatting before Rosmerta's door and let them in.</p><p>There were many in his pub, wearing Bubblehead charms. Luna. Neville. Susan Bones. Molly. Arthur. Andromeda. Tonks, heavily pregnant. Remus.</p><p>"What happened?" Delphini asked, shocked.</p><p>"Pogroms," Aberforth spat. He moved to the portrait of Ariana that hung in the pub, and spoke to her softly. The portrait flung open, revealing a passage. "The Castle needs its Headmaster, Delphini. You must return."</p><p>"Let them come with us," she suggested. "We need all the help we can get to defend the Castle. They will be safer inside her walls."</p><p>"Treachery runs deep, even in the heart of families," Aberforth warned her.</p><p>Percy had taken the Ministry. Fred and George were building weaponry for him. Bill's allegiance remained unclear. Harry trusted everyone in the pub with his life. He did not trust them with Delphini's.</p><p>"We could swear an unbreakable oath," Andromeda offered.</p><p>So oaths were sworn, and Harry led them through the passage to the Castle. Delphini was speaking with Aberforth at the rear of the party, attempting to convince him to join them, in vain. He meant to stand sentinel for those seeking asylum. Dumbledores were stubborn. Sighing, Delphini left him behind.</p><p>"Potter!"</p><p>Snape lowered his wand of hawthorn, letting the rag-tag band enter the Castle. "We are not an immigrant camp! Delphini, the House Elves are in quarantine! We cannot feed and shelter so many!"</p><p>"We are the last bastion north of the Tweed," Delphini said quietly. "It is open war, Severus."</p><p>It was the first time she had called Snape by his name. He sighed and went to heal the cuts and bruises on her, and foisted upon her pain-relieving potions to ease the inflammation of the Cruciatus.</p><p>"Please settle in the Gryffindor Tower," Delphini ordered the motley band. "It is well-ventilated and cosy, and easy to ensure upkeep without involving the House Elves. The Castle is under strict quarantine, given our lack of vaccine potions to inoculate the entire staff of our Elves. We have only about ten who have received the vaccine potions, and they have been running ragged as it were."</p><p>"Healer Bones, if you could spare a moment, perhaps we can discuss the charge of the hospital wing? Since open war is upon us, I anticipate that we will be receiving wounded witches and wizards soon."</p><p>"Mrs. Weasley, if you could see to the supplies in the kitchens and come with recommendations as to what we must prioritize in the green houses?"</p><p>Logistics, Harry had forgotten, was Delphini's area of expertise. She had been the youngest to run St. Mungo's, and she had led them through a pandemic. She excelled at administration and logistics, under impossible deadlines and budgetary constraints.</p><p>A wand of elm. Succor and protection.</p><p>"Ron and Hermione?" Harry asked Snape.</p><p>"They arrived here yesterday. Rose accompanied them. Hugo's whereabouts are unknown."</p><p>"Minerva?"</p><p>"Reinforcing the wards. She is the only one who understands the rudiments of the Castle's warding."</p><p>She was the only one left. Flitwick and Dumbledore had warded the Castle together for decades.</p><p>"Where is Voldemort?"</p><p>"Securing Griselda's Ministry."</p><p>"He does not have the numbers," Snape ruminated.</p><p>"Bellatrix is marshaling an army. Rodolphus said that we must hold the Castle."</p><p>"Lestrange is right. They cannot help us." Snape eyed the ragtag crew Delphini was mingling with. "It could be worse. We could be fighting Bellatrix."</p><p>"Optimism? From you?" Harry wondered.</p><p>Snape sighed and caught his arm, and tugged him into an alcove away from other eyes. Without as much as a by-your-leave, he cast a Reverse Spell on Harry's wand.</p><p>"Rowle," Harry said tiredly.</p><p>Snape stared him down. In fits and bursts, interspersed with long silences, Harry recounted the story.</p><p>"You shouldn't have been able to cast a Killing Curse with that wand," Snape said finally. "There is no precedent."</p><p>Harry hated that word. Precedent.</p><p>He had not told Delphini of the curse he had cast with her old wand. She ached for the spells she could not perform with her wand of elm. He had no wish to place another grief upon her heart.</p><p>"Dolohov was an ambitious bastard," Snape went on. "However, I suspect he was not the one that staged a rebellion in the heart of the Ministry. They have someone higher-up, Potter."</p><p>Periwinkle was not employed in the Ministry. She was a Healer at St. Mungo's.</p><p>Who could they have in Griselda's Ministry? She had cleaned the ranks of nepotism long ago.</p><p>Percy had moved the pieces with unsurpassed cunning. How many times had Harry, during his days at C.R.U.P., humored himself with the notion that Percy might like Periwinkle's stoic pedantry, if only Percy could bring himself to accept the seriousness of the pandemic? Percy had put on a facade of believing Fudge's populist rhetoric, and had maneuvered himself to the top.</p><p>"Harry?" Snape shook him by the shoulders.</p><p>Had he been calling Harry's name for a while?</p><p>"The Killing Curse does not shatter your soul, but it is not without consequences," Snape said gently.</p><p>The adrenaline had worn off. Harry felt a sentient cold, not unlike that of the Dementors, creep into his bones.</p><p>"Does it get easier?"</p><p>"Let us hope you shan't find out." Snape patted his arm. "Ron and Hermione are waiting for you in the Astronomy Tower. Off with you. I shall see to Minerva."</p><p>Harry nodded and set off. First things first. He tracked down Delphini, who was engrossed in profound discussion with the Fat Friar and Pomona about why the Hufflepuff barrel repair had to wait.</p><p>"The incontinent Squid takes priority," she said brightly.</p><p>It was the demeanor of a Healer, polite and cheery-faced, even when handing out bad news at triaging rooms. Rose had fractured her arm once. Ron and Harry had argued with the A&amp;E triaging nurse until they were blue in the face, as to why it merited a seven on ten instead of a three on ten, in her prioritization list.</p><p>"You have been dealing with the Squid for weeks!" Pomona complained.</p><p>"It is a complicated problem with multivariate aspects," Delphini lied through her teeth.</p><p>Harry grabbed her, murmured a few words of hasty apology to Pomona and the Friar, and tugged the girl along to the Astronomy Tower.</p><p>"Thank you!"</p><p>"Don't try to argue with a Hufflepuff. Their legendary patience will keep you there for hours."</p><p>"People are people, Harry. Outside Hogwarts, we don't have Houses. We rely on the MBTI personality assessments instead!"</p><p>It could be worse. It could be Freud.</p><p>"Harry! Delphini!" Ron, Hermione, and Rose were grim-faced and exhausted.</p><p>"We fled when Hermione's wards tripped. We had a port-key ready to go to Aberforth's, that Snape sent last week," Ron explained.</p><p>"Any news of Hugo?" Harry asked.</p><p>Ron shook his head.</p><p>"He is a clever lad," Hermione said softly. "Fred and George will not harm him. He will be fine, Harry."</p><p>Harry hoped dearly that she was right.</p><p>"Miss Weasley," Delphini greeted Rose. "Welcome to Hogwarts!"</p><p>"You can call me Rose."</p><p>"Delphini."</p><p>For a Headmaster who frequently was lost in the labyrinth on the Third Floor and needed Harry or Snape to extract her, she carried out her hostly duty with panache. She did not betray her worry on her family's behalf. The Castle, Harry had to admit for the umpteenth time, had chosen wisely. He merely wished that the girl was not who she was, for the world would not cease hunting her down while Voldemort lived. She was the perfect hostage.</p><p>Ron passed them a cold sammie. Harry tore it into halves and shared it with Delphini.</p><p>"Is your family safe, Delphini?" Hermione asked gently.</p><p>"Aunt Narcissa is at the Manor, with Draco and Scorpius. Papa is at the Ministry, securing it. Mum went to raise an army. Dad saved Harry and me at the graveyard."</p><p>"At the graveyard?" Ron mouthed. Harry shook his head.</p><p>"He killed sixteen men," Delphini murmured, staring at her gloves.</p><p>Fifteen. Harry had killed Rowle.</p><p>The adrenaline had worn off. The girl was beginning to comprehend what war meant. <em>There is no victory in this</em>, Voldemort had told Dumbledore, as they stood upon the cracked stones of Delphi.</p><p>"Were you taught dueling?" Ron asked Delphini.</p><p>She shook her head.</p><p>Her family had not wanted war in her time. They had not prepared her for it. Was it hubris? Naivety?</p><p>"They had hoped it would not be necessary," she said softly.</p><p>Hope. It had been hope, delusional and potent.</p><p>She screamed then, and her eyes turned colorless. Harry and Ron rushed to her, catching her as she collapsed.</p><p>"Refugees at the gates!" she whispered, staggering back to her feet with Ron's aid, gorgon turning woman again. "There are refugees at our gates. Let them in, Harry."</p><p>-----------------</p><p> </p><p>"Draco," Harry greeted him, glad to see Draco ensconced in his Herman Miller chair in the pristine sun-washed study.</p><p>"Voldemort continues to hold the Ministry," Draco informed him. "Aunt Bella cleared out the insurgents at Galashiels and at Dumfries. She means to hold the river by the end of the month."</p><p>If she held the river, she held the Wall.</p><p>"If she has the Wall, we can attempt to take the Ministry at Glasgow," Harry said thoughtfully, pulling up the Muggle-Wizarding Atlas.</p><p>"You have more men than she does," Draco said, cautiously optimistic. "However, the Ministry in Glasgow is manned by veterans of two wars."</p><p>The relative inexperience of the insurrectionist Aurors from the London Ministry had worked in Bellatrix's favor, even if she had not the numbers. Percy's government was chockfull of veterans who had fought two wars.</p><p>"Mum is negotiating with the Irish Ministry," Draco told Harry.</p><p>The bells began tolling.</p><p>"Refugees," Harry said, exhausted.</p><p>The refugees had been trickling in, as the ranks of the Ministry and the institutions were cleaned in pogrom after pogrom.</p><p>Some were wounded, having fled the raids with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their wands. Some had been forced to leave behind kin who had been turned squibs by the pandemic. Everyone wore Bubblehead charms and spells to socially distance once more, because many refugees were not vaccinated yet.</p><p>The Castle clamored for Delphini's attention each time refugees wound up at the gates or in the Forest, or were sent through Aberforth's pub. The brutishness in the sentient magic's surge battered Delphini, but she carried on brightly, refusing to falter before others.</p><p>"How is she?" Draco asked. The concern in his voice was grave.</p><p>"As a lighthouse."</p><p>And they flocked to her, the wearied and the wounded, to her lightness of spirit and perpetual optimism, as birds in a fell storm.</p><p>----------</p><p> </p><p>That night, in his attic over the Headmaster's quarters, Harry played Animal Crossing to distract himself.</p><p>Sleep was a lost cause. The Castle was rife with activity, as refugees poured in. When Harry closed his eyes, he saw Rowle falling, he saw fifteen screaming in deadly flames of blue. He saw Delphini buried alive in the bones of his parents.</p><p>His phone rang.</p><p>"Harry."</p><p>"Voldemort."</p><p>They had feasted together at Swanage, to celebrate Harry's birthday.</p><p>They had woken to war.</p><p>Perhaps Harry's birthdays were best left unmarked.</p><p>Voldemort was in a janitor's closet, akin to the one that Delphini had favored at St. Mungo's.</p><p>"The upper levels have been secured," he said. "We mean to sweep out the lower levels starting tomorrow."</p><p>"Have you found the mole?"</p><p>Voldemort shook his head.</p><p>"Snape thinks it must be someone in a key position."</p><p>"He is right, I suspect. There is an-" Voldemort shook his head again. "I sense a watchfulness, even in the men I lead."</p><p>Treachery in the ranks. Voldemort's magic, protective as it was of him, had not led him astray before.</p><p>"Get out of there."</p><p>Harry had been to the Ministry, to the lower levels. It was a death-trap.</p><p>"We cannot win this war if we lose the Ministry. We will have lost the symbol of legitimacy of our government."</p><p>A government in exile did not mean anything, in practice. Tibet had shown that. Taiwan had shown that. Catalunya had shown that. The deposed monarchies of the House of Stuart and the House of Bourbon had shown that.</p><p>"And what of the wand?" Harry enquired.</p><p>"I have been conversing with it."</p><p>Voldemort's ideas of communion with the wand baffled Harry.</p><p>"Stay alive," he ordered.</p><p>"<em>Still</em> alive," Voldemort replied, mirth stealing into his eyes, gaze cutting to the GLaDOS lyrics posted on Harry's wall.</p><p>"Delphini has inherited her warped sense of humor from you," Harry said, grinning despite himself.</p><p>There was a soft knock on Harry's door then. He flicked his wand to open it. Delphini entered, in her tatty grey pyjamas and a faded Iron Maiden jumper.</p><p>"Speak of the devil."</p><p>"Shut up, Harry," she muttered, plonking herself on Harry's bed, cuddling to his side, leaning her head on his shoulder so that she could fit into the front camera view of Harry's iPhone. "Papa, isn't it rather late to lock yourself in the closet?" she whispered dramatically, mimicking Bellatrix's enunciation. "<em>Everybody knows!</em>"</p><p>"Pray tell, what does everyone know?" Voldemort humored her, eyes raking sharp as he read stories from the minute expressions she wore.</p><p>"That you are gay as a flamingo in Vegas," she said giggling.</p><p>"Are there very many gay flamingoes in Vegas?" Harry queried.</p><p>"I don't know. Dumbledore wrote many haikus in the instruction list he left behind. Most of them were about the gay flamingoes of Vegas."</p><p>"There is an Elvis Presley who chaplains marriages in Vegas," Voldemort offered.</p><p>"Why do you know this?"</p><p>Had Abraxas married Voldemort in <em>Vegas</em> for a lark? Nothing suggested to Harry that Abraxas would have been one to mind the conventions of society or laws as writ when it came to declaring his place by Voldemort's side. Vegas, however-</p><p>Had there been an orgy?</p><p>"Yes! What Harry asked! Why do you know this, Papa?"</p><p>"Your parents eloped to Vegas. Dromeda ran away to marry her boy in Bethnal Green. Bella wanted to one-up her. So Vegas it was. I was summoned to Obliviate the officiant and the dancers."</p><p>"Strippers, you mean?" Harry asked dryly.</p><p>"They were dancing," Voldemort defended them. "On poles. To Elvis Presley's <em>Hound Dog</em>."</p><p>"Mum is so tacky!" Delphini complained, mortified.</p><p>"I waited until the cocktail of drugs they had sampled wore off, and ferried them home across the Atlantic. A most memorable errand."</p><p>Harry had not imagined what Bellatrix's marriage must have constituted. If he had, he fancied he might have come up with this outrageous sequence of events. Sirius, if he had married, would have wound up in Vegas too, Harry thought wistfully. The dramatic flair Bellatrix carried effortlessly had been Sirius's way too.</p><p>"When the war is over, will you marry?" Delphini asked them.</p><p>"Harry is set upon finding the One," Voldemort teased. "We cannot ask him to settle, can we?"</p><p>He would needle Harry over this for the rest of their lives, wouldn't he? Two could play at this game. He knew well Voldemort's weaknesses.</p><p>"You are the One, beloved."</p><p>Delphini laughed, clapping her hands in glee.</p><p>"Papa! Are you all right? Oh, Harry, what have you done to him? You have broken him! Papa!"</p><p>"I am not averse to marriage," Harry declared, laughing with Delphini. "As long as you bake our cake."</p><p>Voldemort cleared his throat. Even through the dim lighting, Harry could see how he was shaken, touched to the heart by Harry's words.</p><p>Marriage. The word had meant something to Voldemort once. Delphini sensed it too.</p><p>"Where did you marry Abraxas?" she asked gently.</p><p>"At the Temple of Delphi. He wed me with a ring he had bought from my uncle, Morfin Gaunt. Abraxas had tracked him down to a hovel in Little Hangleton. He had meant to partake in an exchange of gifts between the families, as was tradition. He saw the squalor and the hatred, and chose to instead barter money for this token."</p><p>At the navel of the world, on cracked stones, Voldemort had once known happiness, claimed in wedlock with ring and vow, long before he had returned to weep tears of blood under Saturn's cold watch to surrender madness and war, long before he had screamed silent under his daughter's Cruciatus.</p><p>"I am sorry, Papa."</p><p>"It was a very long time ago," Voldemort replied, though they knew, all three of them, that mourning he wore on his breast as the scarlet letter Minerva had spoken of. It had been eclipsed by joy, by new loves that muted old griefs. Harry was beginning to see, however, that mourning was as eternal as love.</p><p>"I vote for Vegas," Harry said, changing the subject. "Delphini and I mean to get matching tattoos. Vegas has tattoo parlors."</p><p>"Matching tattoos?" Voldemort asked, surprised.</p><p>"To commemorate our trip! From the Aegean Sea to the North Sea! Oh, Harry, can we plan a trip of the Americas after the war? I want to see a mariachi band! And Harry, I want to visit a tearoom!"</p><p>A tearoom.</p><p>Huddled on his bed, holding Delphini close, peering at the phone to make out the lines and shadows of Voldemort in the dark of the janitorial closet, Harry could forget that war had come to them once more.</p><p>If they made it out of this, Vegas and mariachi bands and tearooms it was.</p><p>--------</p><p>Ron had started a new IRC channel to coordinate the Castle's defences. Pomona and Molly had started a new Telegram group to coordinate the logistics of food and shelter.</p><p>Hugo arrived on a Hippogriff, unharmed and shaken, and brought with him a treasure trove of decrypted information about the weaponry Fred and George had crafted for the Ministry contracts.</p><p>--------</p><p>"I don't think I can do this," Delphini murmured, as she nervously bounced on her feet, in the little room adjoining the Headmaster's office.</p><p>"You have me," Harry told her.</p><p>He had killed to save her. Unprecedented, Snape had said, for a wand of hawthorn.</p><p>"How brave you must have been, when you were a child that the world looked to as a savior," Delphini said. "Draco said that you came back from the graveyard with Diggory's body, bloodied but brave and resolute."</p><p>The awe in her voice turned Harry uncomfortable. There had been no bravery in those days, fighting a madman who mourned and unraveled. Senseless deaths, for a cause nobody believed in. Harry had placed one foot before the other, and carried on. What else could he have done? Narcissa had ended the war and healed the madman.</p><p>In the Headmaster's office was assembled a group that Harry had seen in Grimmauld Place during the previous war. Everyone wore Bubblehead charms and stood six feet apart.</p><p>"Welcome to the Castle Defence Council," Delphini greeted them, taking her place in the Headmaster's chair.</p><p>The C.D.C., she had insisted on abbreviating the council on their meeting minutes, quietly giggling at a joke only she understood. Fawkes's perch stood empty. The portraits watched the proceedings attentively. Dumbledore's waved at Harry.</p><p>"We must take Hogsmeade." Snape set forward his proposal. "The next pogrom will target the shopkeepers who aid Hogwarts. We must take the village before that happens, or our supply lines will be cut."</p><p>And refugees would not make it to their gates. Aberforth and Rosmerta and the others in Hogsmeade were playing a dangerous game, aiding refugees and sneaking in supplies to Hogwarts.</p><p>"Hogsmeade is not defendable," Lupin said. He was ever the cautious one. "Any garrison there will be exposed."</p><p>"If Bellatrix Lestrange can hold a river, we can hold a village," Snape argued.</p><p>Harry intervened before they lapsed into old schoolboy drama. "Hugo, what is your opinion?"</p><p>"The artillery and explosives that were commissioned are meant to batter the walls of Hogwarts," Hugo said grimly.</p><p>He had aged years in the span of weeks. The lad who had teased Harry about GLaDOS when they played Portal together, and driven Ron and Hermione batty with his anarchist Reddit theories and percussion play, was solemn-faced and brave as he sat before them.</p><p>"If that is the case, then we know that the Ministry has the ammunition to raze Hogsmeade to the ground."</p><p>"We cannot let Hogsmeade fall to them, Remus. We will have lost the war." It was Andromeda. "Severus is right. We must take the village."</p><p>"We can raise wards," Minerva said thoughtfully. "A barrier of magic, as the Wall."</p><p>"The original designs of the warding charms on the Wall are in Professor Flitwick's papers," Hermione chimed in. "It shan't be trivial, but I am confident that we can come up with a similar solution."</p><p>"The barrier upon the Tweed uses the magic of the river," Snape remarked.</p><p>"We can anchor the wards to the Castle's bedrock," Delphini said quietly.</p><p>"That is a dangerous gambit. The reactive lash-out of magic will harm you, if the Castle is taken," Snape said, turning from strategy to concern. He had come to be fond of the girl, despite her parentage.</p><p>"I won't be alive, if the Castle is taken," she pointed out.</p><p>Silence fell in the room.</p><p>"Well, that shan't happen now, shall it?" Minerva said briskly. "Hermione, Hugo, please work with Aurora to understand the charms that shall be necessary, what ammunition of magic or Muggle make they may be assailed by, and the ritual arrangement for the casting."</p><p>"Harry, Severus, see to Hogsmeade," Minerva ordered. "Ron, Remus, see to the garrison that must secure the periphery swiftly once the village is taken. The defences must hold until the wards are raised. Susan, ensure that the hospital wing ready for the wounded."</p><p>Humor brightened Minerva's gaze then, and she said, "Delphini, see to the Squid."</p><p>Delphini groaned and buried her head in her hands.</p><p>"And find out how to convert the Beeple to galleons!"</p><p>"Fuck NFTs," Delphini said fervently.</p><p>Harry agreed with her view on the matter.</p><p>---------</p><p>"I think Andromeda hates me," Delphini muttered, after the meeting had disbanded, leaving her alone with Harry, Snape, and Minerva.</p><p>"She hates your parents," Snape said, offering caustic comfort as only he could.</p><p>"That does not help, Severus! I wish-"</p><p>She wished that children were not hated for their parents. She wished that those in the Order who had gone to war with Voldemort twice would not loathe him as they did.</p><p>"I wish this was not my place to stand." She waved a hand about her, all-encompassing.</p><p>"So did Albus," Minerva said gently. "Then he came to terms with the Castle. He found a place of peace here, suspended in time, held in pact. Unlike Headmaster Dippet, and those that came before, Albus was not alone."</p><p>The Castle's magic had been reined in by Dumbledore's fierce walls of determination. And as lullaby, softening the Castle's tempest, had dwelled evergreen in mediation, even through the decades when Voldemort had known no sanity. The pact of the Heir and the Headmaster had held the Castle since the 1940s, and held it to this day.</p><p>"When they look at me, I see that they are comparing me to Dumbledore." Delphini looked to the empty perch Fawkes had once occupied. "I knew, from an early age, that I would not match my parents. I hadn't expected-"</p><p>"You had found your path, and a path that brooked no comparisons."</p><p>She had become a Healer.</p><p>Then that path had been taken from her, and she had found herself married to a Castle, trying to fill in for the greatest wizard that had lived.</p><p>"It isn't fair," she said finally.</p><p>"What is greatness?" Snape demanded. "It was not Albus that ended the war. It was not Voldemort that ended the war. It was once a boy in a cradle who dared live. It was once a woman without magic, alone, with neither power nor family nor alliances, who brought about the peace in our time."</p><p>"Greatness does not bode peace or victory, Delphini," Minerva said. "All that we can do, all that we must do, is to hold the line."</p><p>"Hold the line," Delphini said contemplatively, spinning about in a circle, looking up at the portraits of great witches and wizards who had preceded her, fiddling with the gloves on her hands that covered scars she had carven onto herself for Harry's sake.</p><p>She walked to the window, to stare at the mighty beech that canopied Dumbledore's tomb.</p><p>"Very well, then. I shall hold the line."</p><p>--------</p><p>"We will have to raise wards and anchor them to the Castle," Harry told Voldemort on the eve of the battle for Hogsmeade.</p><p>Voldemort nodded thoughtfully. He had wrangled a lamp into the janitorial closet. It lit his face an eerie yellow.</p><p>Hermione and Minerva were confident about the warding.</p><p>Snape and Harry had mulled over their battle plans for days. They had a plan. It was mostly sound. The rest, Snape declared, was a matter of good fortune. This optimistic turn Snape had taken since July worried Harry. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then again, Snape was not a pessimist. Minerva had called Albus and him guilty of carrying about with them a distorted and rosy view of reality. No man without unfounded optimism would have waited patiently for his One for twenty years.</p><p>The weakest link remained holding the defenses until the wards were raised.</p><p>"You need cannon-fodder," Voldemort remarked. "It took three days to raise the Wall along the Tweed. I suspect it shall take eight or nine hours to raise the wards about Hogsmeade."</p><p>"Hermione promised two hours."</p><p>"Perhaps, if Albus or Professor Flitwick had been the ones to enact it," Voldemort contemplated. "The Castle is tempestuous, Harry. It takes will and patience to coax her to devisings not of her make."</p><p>"It is Hermione. She knows what she is doing. Minerva and Aurora checked the calculations."</p><p>Harry sighed. He had his concerns too. If the Castle did not yield and allow the wards to be anchored to her, what would they do? Delphini was inexperienced in making the Castle submit. Voldemort's magic was wound through the bedrock, but it was a passive entity, and would need a Headmaster's will to harness. The old balance between evergreen's lullaby and azure's fierceness did not exist anymore. It would take years for Delphini to define her magic in the bedrock.</p><p>"Harry-"</p><p>"We have no choice," Harry cut off Voldemort. "If Hogsmeade is taken, the Castle will be cut off. It would mean defeat."</p><p>"Bella holds the Tweed. Once the Ministry-"</p><p>"The Ministry!" Harry exhaled. "You are afraid to take calls in the Ministry offices because you don't trust the men you lead, Voldemort. There are spies and moles who have deeply infiltrated your ranks. You have been sieged there for weeks, fighting to flush out the lower levels in vain! You said it is as if they anticipate your every move. I want you out of there." Voldemort made to speak, but Harry went on hurriedly, "I know why you cannot let the Ministry fall. I know why this is necessary. I fear-" He gulped. "I fear, and I know you fear too, that the treachery begins at the top."</p><p>"I have been gathering informants and allies," Voldemort said soothingly. "I anticipate I can end this siege by the first week of September. It is merely a game of shadows now."</p><p>A game of shadows, because Bellatrix had had the bloody sense to sweep clean the insurgents on both sides of the river. She had not paused to take prisoners. So Voldemort was left to winnow through the ranks, sifting to find out the golden path that led to the uppermost echelons of power that had aided this insurrection.</p><p>Harry had begun to suspect, as had Voldemort, though neither had dared voice it yet, that the path led to Griselda.</p><p>It frightened Harry to think of Voldemort alone at the Ministry, surrounded by Aurors and bureaucrats who had sworn allegiance to Griselda, with no inkling of whose loyalty ran where. For all they knew, both sides of the skirmish that had been ongoing in the Ministry siege could be loyal to Griselda, waiting for the opportune moment to turn on Voldemort.</p><p>"You should have appointed Narcissa to the post."</p><p>"She appointed the current Minister to the post," Voldemort pointed out. "It has served the country well, through more than two decades."</p><p>Griselda was an able administrator. She was revered in their country. What could have motivated her to throw her lot in with Percy?</p><p>Unification, Harry realized. An agenda of unification. Percy must have promised her the Ministerial post for the unified country. Griselda was canny enough to not take him at his word. Had there been an Unbreakable Vow made?</p><p>They had moved swiftly to exploit the ruckus of the pandemic and Fudge's loss of magic, understanding that Dumbledore was weakening, knowing that Harry was entangled with Voldemort. Without figureheads, excited to paranoia as the public had been by years of propaganda that had been amplified during the pandemic, the countries were ripe for war and unification.</p><p>"I don't want you there."</p><p>"I don't want you in Hogsmeade."</p><p>Harry sighed and changed the subject. "Are you still courting the wand?"</p><p>"I have begun singing to her."</p><p><em>Her?</em> Harry blinked, trying to ascertain if Voldemort was in earnest.</p><p>"I didn't know you sang," he settled for saying in the end.</p><p>"Delphini is fond of singing shower heads because I was liberal with my use of ventriloquism spells."</p><p>Harry laughed at the picture that painted itself.</p><p>"This explains why she cannot hold a tune!" he teased. "What are you singing to the wand?"</p><p>"Nursery rhymes translated to Parseltongue, as the ones I sang to Delphini once" Voldemort reminisced.</p><p>Harry found himself charmed, despite the utter madness Voldemort was going on about.</p><p>"Delphini can be appeased by bacon," he mused. "She likes bacon now."</p><p>"It is the Castle. I have no appetite to speak of, but I crave bacon at the oddest of times. I imagine the desire is manifested stronger in the Headmasters."</p><p>"Bacon it is, then."</p><p>Voldemort looked at him askance.</p><p>"Exchange of gifts. Keep up."</p><p>"Exchange of gifts?"</p><p>"I mean to wed the One."</p><p>Voldemort's horrified amusement carried Harry into a merry bout of laughter.</p><p>"Stay alive," Voldemort said finally.</p><p>"<em>Still alive</em>," Harry reparteed.</p><p>November 2019 had been a long time ago. They had lived lifetimes in the months since. He wished dearly that they could hold each other through the night, once more, before the battle. There was no war left in them, but to war they must.</p><p>When this ended, when the war was over, Harry vowed to himself that he would not leave Swanage again, come hail or hellfire.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>September 2021</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"To your left!" Harry shouted.</p><p>This song of spell and swerve he had practiced with Snape a thousand times, once upon a war. They worked effectively, leading their troops through explosions and skirmishes.</p><p>Hawthorn defended them, as they pressed onwards, up the high street, navigating battered shop-fronts, wounded and dying Aurors. The Interim Ministry had sent a battalion of two hundred, armed with Fred's and George's explosives, led by Auror Gawain Robards.</p><p>"Take Robards," Snape ordered Harry. "I will undo the mines."</p><p>Fred's and George's pyrotechnics were lethal. Harry glared at Snape.</p><p>"We are running out of time."</p><p>"Severus-"</p><p>"We are running out of men," Snape barked. "They have plenty. Take down Robards."</p><p>Harry nodded and surveyed the field for Robards. He found the General in the middle of the fray, directing his men to besiege the vanguard Ron and Remus were bringing from the Castle. Where was Scrimgeour? They had anticipated him to be present.</p><p>"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, drawing Robards's attention to him.</p><p>"Potter!" Robards yelled to his men. "Take him alive! Take Potter alive!"</p><p>Twenty came to him. Harry spun to have the shop-front of The Three Broomsticks at his back.</p><p>Explosions burst through the tree-line, of many colors, and the searing heat blistered skin instantaneously. The Bubblehead charms they wore saved them from smoke inhalation. Had Snape set off Fiendfyre on the explosives? Harry swore. Of all the bloody brave and foolish things to do!</p><p>"Impedimenta!" Robards screamed.</p><p>They were outnumbered. Remus was fighting his way to relieve Harry. He would be too late. Snape was right. The Interim Ministry had sent plenty of cannon fodder.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Harry raised his wand of hawthorn and cast the spell Rodolphus had.</p><p>"Protego Diabolica!"</p><p>Blue rose the flames to encircle Harry, magical and protective, reckless in sieving ally from enemy. Men yelled and screamed in anguish, casting spells to conjure water and protective barriers, in vain.</p><p>"Of all the bloody brave and foolish things to do!" Snape shouted. "If that spell had gone awry, it would have killed you!"</p><p>So said the man who had cast Fiendfyre on explosives.</p><p>"I knew what I was doing," Snape held.</p><p>"So did I."</p><p>"That was Dark Magic!" Remus exclaimed, hurrying over. "Harry, that was a dangerous spell. Severus is right. It could have killed you!"</p><p>Blue flames ringed the village.</p><p>"Raise the wards!" Remus ordered. "Hermione, Minerva, raise the wards!"</p><p>Exhausted, Harry slumped down against the shop-front of The Three Broomsticks. They heard the sirens and the horns of the Aurors, as another battalion arrived.</p><p>"How long can you hold the ring?" Ron asked Harry.</p><p>He did not know.</p><p>"Of all the idiotic things-" Snape cut himself off. "Be prepared for the ring to fall in half an hour!"</p><p>"Who taught you?" he demanded, furious, foisting on Harry energizing potions full of dragon dung and Red Bull. "It is a dangerous spell! Albus said that it was Grindelwald's signature spell."</p><p>"I watched Rodolphus at the graveyard. Learning by watching. You should be proud of me."</p><p>Snape's expression gentled. He said quietly, "I am. Everyday."</p><p>Harry grinned.</p><p>"You are as mad as a hatter," Snape complained then, as if he had not set explosives on Fiendfyre to be rid of them.</p><p>Over them, flames of blue rose as towers to the skies, casting upon them an eerie light, dangerous and protective.</p><p>"It reminds me of Albus's magic."</p><p>They waited for the wards to rise.</p><p>"Is that-" Remus began, and then shouted, "Shield Charms! Shield Charms!"</p><p>Snape swore and joined him in casting, aiding him to raise a powerful Shield that covered their people in the circle of fire Harry held.</p><p>Pouring down from the skies, seeping in up through the ground, came an ugly red, ancient and mottled. The Castle's magic, vengeful and undirected, as the Obscurus in Harry had once been. It attacked the blue fires of protection Harry had raised, eating through the magic in wrath, sensing only an alien presence on her dominion.</p><p>Men began screaming, eaten alive of magic and soul and life by the sentient magic of the Castle that ravaged and roved.</p><p>"Take down the protection spell, Harry!" Snape shouted.</p><p>"We have not the numbers!" Ron yelled, from where he was bolstering their men into defensive positions.</p><p>"The wards!" Harry screamed. "The wards are not up yet."</p><p>"We cannot wait for the wards!" Snape said, grim-faced. "There will be nobody left alive."</p><p>"The Castle will massacre us all, friend or foe!" Remus argued. "Take down the spell, Harry!"</p><p>He did not know how. Snape began chanting, sing-song, and the spell fell.</p><p>They were outnumbered. In the corner of his eyes, Harry saw Ron and Remus trying to marshal the men to order, to position, in vain. They were overwhelmed by the second contingent of Aurors, led by Scrimgeour.</p><p>It was massacre.</p><p><em>Cannon fodder</em>, Voldemort had said. Harry no longer knew minute from minute, absorbed in spell and swerve, taking down as many as he could, and only Snape's fierceness in guarding his back kept him alive.</p><p>Scrimgeour was shouting to his men. "Fall back! Fall back!"</p><p>A sweep of evergreen velveteen spun walls of the Castle's mighty blue, walls of magic, barriers invisible and impenetrable.</p><p>"The wards! The wards are up!"</p><p>How had they managed to overcome the Castle's will? Had Delphini accomplished the impossible? How had she-</p><p>Relieved, Harry looked to Snape. The rictus of grief on Snape's features horrified him.</p><p>"Who-"</p><p>Remus? Faint, Harry tried to turn to where he had espied Remus last.</p><p>"Look at me," Snape ordered, cupping his cheeks.</p><p>"Don't let him see, Severus." It was Remus's voice.</p><p>"Ron!" Harry shouted, frightened. "Ron!"</p><p>Ron did not answer.</p><p>--------</p><p>Harry could not remember how he had returned to the Castle. Snape and Remus must have dragged him back. Disorientated, he walked with them to the Great Hall.</p><p>Delphini waited there alone.</p><p>"Severus," she said softly. "Minerva gave herself to placate the Castle."</p><p>Minerva had not known to control the wards as Flitwick or Dumbledore had. Brilliant mind that she had been, she had put together enough to understand that they had miscalculated the Castle's tempestuousness. She knew that all was lost. She knew that Delphini could not rein in the sentience. So she had sought to harness the living magic that remained in the bedrock, even if it be passive. She had distracted the Castle's sentience to herself, allowing Voldemort's magic the opening to raise the wards. Pragmatic and brilliant, and unflinchingly herself, she had provided the catalyst Voldemort had needed to shift his magic from inertness wound through the bedrock to force.</p><p>She had held the line.</p><p>-------</p><p>Hermione was in the Gryffindor common room, sitting in an armchair where once Ron had kissed Lavender. Hugo stood beside her, one arm on her shoulder, another about Rose's weeping form.</p><p>Remus was there too, bloodied and miserable. When Remus saw Harry, he nodded curtly and left them alone.</p><p>"It was Scrimgeour," Hugo said, eyes dark in fury. "He was aiming for Lupin."</p><p>Ron. Brave, good Ron. Sixth of seven. Overlooked and lonely in a large family, Harry's succor of decades, pragmatic and kind and patient to him through the eddies and ebbs of his life, through war and peace.</p><p>"It was my fault," Hermione whispered. Her voice was thin and she glistened sickly pale in the moonlight. "I miscalculated."</p><p>Voldemort had said that the Castle would not brook easily to be commanded.</p><p>"Minerva-" her voice hitched.</p><p>Harry went to kneel before her. Cupping her face, he told her bluntly, "It was not your fault. If Dumbledore were here, he would have commanded the Castle. If Molly and Arthur had been more fortunate, they would not have raised their sons to civil war. If Merope had not died of a foolish, broken heart, none of this would have happened."</p><p>If Dumbledore had not fallen in love with Grindelwald, if Abraxas had not dared see the humanity in a reviled, dangerous orphan, if Narcissa had gracefully given in to fate, if Harry had not longed in a cupboard and for forty years wishing for the One, if Ron had been a selfish man-</p><p>"For want of a nail," Hugo muttered.</p><p>Hermione shook her head wretchedly, her grief transcended past expression and articulation. Even tears were denied her. She clutched Hugo's hand on her shoulder as if it were the only thing that tethered her to life.</p><p>"Can I bury him in Hogsmeade?" she asked. "In the place where he fell."</p><p>"Yes," Hugo said, before Harry could answer.</p><p>Gone the boy Harry had taken to the roller-coasters in Aberdeen, the lad who had driven them batty with anarchist theories and playing percussion in the middle of the night, the man who had braved weeks of perilous undercover work to gather information.</p><p>In Hugo's place, Harry saw Ron's son, determined and steadfast and brave-heart.</p><p>----------</p><p>"If only I had learned how to-"</p><p>"Here," Harry ordered, passing Delphini a vial of Dreamless Sleep.</p><p>"Harry, I cannot. The hospital wing has many whose conditions may change through the night."</p><p>"Susan has it well in hand. Drink the potion and to bed with you."</p><p>Guilt preyed on her. Furious, she cast a shattering curse on the spindly glass instruments on the table. The portraits tutted in disapproval. Dumbledore's portrait merely watched her in sadness.</p><p>Harry had destroyed this office once. He had returned from the Ministry, after Sirius's death, after throwing the Cruciatus for the first and last time on another.</p><p>"Drink the potion," he commanded.</p><p>She nodded, and came to hug him, bright-eyed and brave despite the killing, withering weight on her shoulders.</p><p>--------</p><p>Harry knocked on the door to Classroom Sixty Four. In for a penny, in for a pound. He broke Snape's locking spells and entered.</p><p>The sentient froth in the cauldron had been vanished.</p><p>"I grew that travesty only so that she may laugh and shake her head in exasperation."</p><p>Snape was slumped in a corner, head buried in his knees. Harry went to sit beside him.</p><p>"I don't blame the girl."</p><p>The tight-reined emotion in Snape's voice shattered Harry.</p><p>How long, how long, how long, had Snape loved Minerva, in silence and in glance, before he had spoken, before he had dared, turn after turn braving rejection, until they had come to lay aside their fears and meet each other in love's truce?</p><p>Snape, Dumbledore had said, had fallen in love with Minerva in 1974, when he had been a boy of fourteen, carrying a torch in silence. Snape had first spoken to Minerva of it in 1980. They had come to their rapport in 1995. Minerva had wed him in 2020, at the apex of the pandemic, by the Lake at Hogwarts, and Harry and Dumbledore had cheered them on.</p><p>Forty-seven years.</p><p>Forty-seven had died in the Battle of Hogsmeade.</p><p>Harry wore the robes Snape had given him. He had worn them to Swanage. He had worn them everyday since, through battle and siege.</p><p>When he had been alone, for more than twenty years, he had begged for Snape's robes often, because the distinctive scent of herbs and Hogwarts that they carried comforted him. The scent meant protection. Harry was alive due to this man who had seen him through war and peace.</p><p>"I know now. I know now why he tore himself and ruined us all," Snape said hoarsely, clutching Harry's arm as if it were his sole anchor to sanity. "If I could, if I had the courage-"</p><p>It was not a question of courage. It was a question of sense. Snape had been raised in Dumbledore's ways, to place the greater good above his heart.</p><p>"You are the bravest man I have known," Harry said truthfully.</p><p>Snape began sobbing, heartrending and ugly in inconsolable, eternal grief. Harry gathered him into his arms.</p><p>"You should go to Hermione," Snape breathed, drawing rattled breaths in between hacking sobs of a man who knew not how to weep.</p><p>"Her children are with her."</p><p>"The girl-"</p><p>"I gave her a sleeping potion and sent her to bed," Harry replied. "I am here. You might as well as resign yourself to that."</p><p>Snape had seen Harry through everything. Snape had been Dumbledore's man, they said. He was Harry's man, in truth.</p><p>Harry held him through dark to dawn.</p><p>The sunrise brought no balm.</p><p>----------</p><p>He staggered back to the attic over the Headmaster's quarters to shower and wash the battle off.</p><p>On his knees, weeping in the shower, he wondered if this was beginning's end. He had been joyful on New Year's Eve, as he kissed Voldemort one last time before leaving Swanage, at pandemic's end. He had not known what he held, but he had held Voldemort in joy.</p><p>Dumbledore had been alive. Harry had been texting him quotes from Shelley's poetry, striving to impress him with Harry's newfound knowledge of romantic literature.</p><p>Snape had been stressed about the House Elves, but he had been content too, in his long peace of two decades, in Minerva's keeping himself gladly given.</p><p>Hermione and Ron had muttered about how they had to celebrate New Year's with skulking evil in their basement, as Rose went on Twitter rages and as Hugo kept them up with his rousing rendition of <em>Kashmir</em> by Led Zeppelin.</p><p>There had been wicked joy in their group messages, as the lot of them gently mocked Harry about his clumsy and desperate attempts to find the One.</p><p>Delphini had been jubilant, as the pandemic wound down, as the logistics of the distribution of vaccine potions improved. Her family had been inoculated. She was St. Mungo's Chief Healer, who had led them through a pandemic. She was engaged to Nat Rosier, rising star in the Ministry.</p><p>Harry had been happy.</p><p>Then his world had ended.</p><p>It had begun with Nat Rosier's death. A father weeping tears of blood on cracked stone under Saturn's watch. A stolen flying motorbike from the Aegean Sea to the North Sea, to Dunkirk's beaches, traveling bittersweet paths of war and peace across the Continent. <em>Tattoos</em>, a gorgon-girl had beseeched him, and in her happiness he had found contentment.</p><p>Azkaban. Umbridge. <em>Hoist the colors</em>, his girl had sung in prayer. The vengeance of the Obscurus. An island in flames. Coming to Hogwarts with a dying girl who had sacrificed her magic to save him. <em>Unprecedented</em>, lore would term it.</p><p>To the Astronomy tower, where Dumbledore had fallen, wrapped in evergreen's elegy. To the bedrock, where two brother wands had been broken to wed a girl to a Castle as blood price.</p><p><em>I hoped it would not come to this</em>, Voldemort had wished, as they stood on war's eve.</p><p>It had come to this.</p><p>It had come to all of this.</p><p>His phone rang, insistent and loud.</p><p>Battered, uncaring, he dragged it into the shower. Ron had cast water repellent charms on Harry's gadgets, tutting after the umpteenth time he had ruined an iPad by spilling tea on it. <em>In this house, we Buy It For Life</em>, Ron had admonished him.</p><p>"Harry."</p><p>Voldemort had moved from the janitorial closet to a bridge. Harry saw the London Eye, golden red in the sunrise.</p><p>"Westminster Bridge," he said.</p><p>Voldemort did not query why Harry was in the shower, kneeling and weeping, clad in waterlogged battle robes.</p><p>"Have you been here before?"</p><p>"I have seen this location in the James Bond movie, <em>Spectre</em>. Blofeld's helicopter crashed into the bridge right where you are standing."</p><p>Harry had watched it with Ron and Hermione, on their tatty sofa bought for life, with stains of questionable origin that were as old as Hugo and Rose. Hermione hated the Bond movies, calling them chauvinistic wet dreams of cars and bombshells all of which existed to glorify the personification of a man's lizard-brain. Ron had loved the movies. <em>Good, mindless fun</em>, he had called them. And Harry, Harry had wanted to bugger Daniel Craig over the Aston Martin.</p><p>"Severus was fond of the James Bond films, as a boy," Voldemort remarked. "I have heard that it was due to a summer of films his father and he bonded over."</p><p>Snape had been the one to introduce Ron to the franchise. Harry had long suspected that Snape shamelessly used James Bond as a guide to life.</p><p>"Have you seen the movies?"</p><p>"No," Voldemort replied. "Delphini and Scorpius were fond of sword and sorcery swashbucklers as children. Pirates. The Lord of the Rings. The Three Musketeers. Krull. The Scorpion King. Conan the Barbarian."</p><p>Some of the worst movies Harry had seen, mingled with some of the best movies he had seen. Draco's taste was appalling.</p><p>"They were particularly fond of <em>Krull</em>. They insisted on watching it on Halloween, every year."</p><p>Krull had a group of outlaws trying to save a princess from The Beast and his teleporting Black Fortress. Harry had liked the film, though Ron and Hermione had found it too moody for the genre, compared to Star Wars. There had been prophecy. There had been predestination. Corwyn had moved heaven and earth for his <em>One</em>. Their love theme in the film, a piano score, had stayed with Harry for years.</p><p>"Nathaniel was an excellent pianist. He would play a piano score from the film for Delphini often," Voldemort mentioned.</p><p>He had died defending Griselda, in a staged attack. Delphini had led them through a pandemic, but she had been unable to save her betrothed dying in her arms. She had lost even the ring he had given her.</p><p>"Why are you outside?"</p><p>Harry wished he had not enquired. What if, Voldemort, in reciprocation, asked Harry why he was in the shower, tearful and dressed?</p><p>"The Castle," Voldemort said absently, veering out of the way of joggers and early morning commuters, the edges of his Disillusionment charm blurring. Only a few wore masks. "She has been tempestuous. I did not wish to placate her in the Ministry. I am watched closely."</p><p>It had been Voldemort's magic that had raised the wards, in the end. Harry saw then the deep grief etched into Voldemort's features. Minerva. He had felt Minerva die.</p><p>"Magic is soul, and soul magic," Harry remembered. How many times had Minerva told him that?</p><p>"She warned me. I was set on my path," Voldemort said tiredly. "She knew me then. She-" He fell silent, watching the dinghies on the river. "Before Godric's Hollow, my mind had unraveled to where it could not bring itself to still for more than a few seconds. Abraxas spent hours every morning gently recounting to me who I was, and who I was to him. When I saw Minerva before the end, I gave her <em>The Scarlet Letter.</em>"</p><p>They had been friends.</p><p>She had given him the book before her death, this book he had given her before his fall.</p><p>"It was the first book I had purchased, as a boy of six or seven. I imagined I was Pearl, and my mother, Hester. Hers the breast that bore the stigma of the scarlet letter. As a child, with a child's naiveté, I dreamed of a world where my parents, despite their follies and failings, would be buried together."</p><p>It was a book of loneliness.</p><p>"Hester had gladly born the shame and the stigmatization. She had bravely worn the letter on her breast. Their union had given her a reprieve from loneliness, and for that she remained grateful."</p><p>"Minerva and I; they called us the finest of our generation. I hastened in desperate folly to rid myself of loneliness, while she bore hers in silent courage for decades. I envied her strength."</p><p>"I was jealous of Ron," Harry confessed, as water trickled down the drain, as the sun rose over the Westminster Bridge. "He married Hermione. He had known that she was the One, from when we were children of fourteen. As a fairytale. He asked her to marry him at war's end. They wed. They bought a house. They had two children, intelligent and loving. They matched each other seamlessly, in everything. They wrote bloody fan-fiction together, about Dumbledore and Firenze, steamy erotica far removed from the reality of gay relationships, and the books became runway bestsellers."</p><p>"They had everything," Harry said tiredly. "They let me crash on their sofa, for days that turned to weeks to months to years. A boy in a cupboard who became a man pining for the unattainable."</p><p>Harry had been grateful. He had also known jealousy, witnessing their domestic harmony cemented by love that had come easy to them.</p><p>"The last postcard I sent Minerva was of Westminster Bridge," Voldemort said. "I wrote to her a fragment of poetry Dorothy Wordsworth had given her brother, William Wordsworth."</p><p>"Go on, please."</p><p>
  <em>Never did sun more beautifully steep</em><br/>
<em>In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;</em><br/>
<em>Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!</em><br/>
<em>The river glideth at his own sweet will.</em>
</p><p>Harry leaned his head against the stone walls, phone propped on his knees and protected by the charms Ron had cast, and water washed his tears away.</p><p>The sun rose behind Voldemort, over a city old and new, over ships and towers, domes and theaters.</p><p>The river flowed on.</p><p> </p><p>-------------</p><p> </p><p>"We are here to debrief on Operation Hogsmeade," Remus said. "We have taken the village, and warded it with defenses anchored to the Castle."</p><p>"Forty-seven have died," Aberforth continued. "Four in the first wave of attack. Forty in the attack following the undoing of Harry Potter's circle of protection. One in the explosives triggered by Fiendfyre. One in friendly fire. One, raising the wards."</p><p>Forty-seven.</p><p>Mere numbers that had replaced names in this analytical assessment.</p><p>Snape was standing alone by the window, eyes cast to the horizon. He had not spoken a word. Hermione, red-eyed, still breaking softly into sobs, sat with Hugo and Rose. Arthur was holding Molly.</p><p>"Why did the Castle turn on us?" Pomona enquired, mopping the tears from her face with a yellow handkerchief.</p><p>"The Headmaster could not control the Castle's will," Aurora said bitterly. She had been Minerva's friend.</p><p>"If Dumbledore had been here-" Tonks bit off her words, seeing the guilt-stricken expression that Delphini wore.</p><p>"I miscalculated the warding complexity," Hermione spoke into the tense silence.</p><p>Voldemort had been skeptical that they could raise the wards in the time Hermione had predicted. He had warned Harry of the Castle's willfulness.</p><p>Harry's phone rang then. It was Percy. He put the call on speakerphone.</p><p>"You will starve yourself to death in the Castle. Give up the girl. She is a terrorist wanted by the Interim Ministry. Everyone else will be pardoned for the insurrection."</p><p>Harry cut the call. Molly began weeping profusely.</p><p>"Where is Bellatrix?" Snape asked, the first words he had spoken.</p><p>"Edinburgh," Delphini replied. "She took Edinburgh this morning."</p><p>Percy wanted a hostage. They needed leverage to neutralize Voldemort. So Percy had sent Scrimgeour to Hogsmeade in a reckless attempt to take the girl. That had been a mistake, leaving Edinburgh undefended.</p><p>Bellatrix was fifty miles away from the capital in Glasgow.</p><p>"Call her," Snape ordered.</p><p>Delphini looked to Harry. He nodded at her curtly. Guilt-ravaged, she swallowed and dialed her mother.</p><p>"Mum, Professor Snape wanted to talk to you. I am going to put you on speaker phone, if that is all right."</p><p>Delphini turned the phone so that Bellatrix could see the gathered.</p><p>"What have I told you about dragging me into your foibles, Delphi?" Bellatrix growled. Then she fell silent, swiftly assessing the casualties, her manner changing to that of a military general.</p><p>"Bellatrix, they lost the Battle for Hogsmeade today," Snape said. "When do you mean to press onwards to Glasgow?"</p><p>"I am content in Edinburgh," Bellatrix simpered, betraying nothing.</p><p>"We can make a thrust on the north banks of the Clyde," Snape said, ignoring her statement. "Do you have the numbers to take the city from the east?"</p><p>Her features were unreadable.</p><p>"Mum, we don't have the time for this," Delphini intervened.</p><p>"Glasgow is a fool's errand," Bellatrix stated.</p><p>"As was Edinburgh," Snape pointed out.</p><p>"It is far from my garrisons and supply lines," she said. "I mean to cross the Tweed tomorrow, Snape. London is burning. The Ministry is under siege."</p><p>She ended the call.</p><p>Snape nodded in the bleak satisfaction of one who wished he had not been proven right.</p><p>"What did that accomplish?" Remus asked wearily.</p><p>"She lies and misdirects, and is loathe to share her strategy with anyone. It is her way," Snape said. "She is at Glasgow. Short-sighted woman!"</p><p>Short-sighted? Harry may not like Bellatrix, but he had faith in her ability to hold the cities she had taken. She was diabolically clever when it came to military logistics.</p><p>"Papa!" Delphini exclaimed, worried.</p><p>"Yes," Snape said grimly. "Bellatrix will make an example of the Glasgow Ministry."</p><p>A gory example, if she held true to form.</p><p>"The reaction will be swift, and in a place she does not anticipate."</p><p>"Narcissa!" Andromeda breathed, frightened. "They will go after Narcissa."</p><p>Snape tilted his head in assent.</p><p>In Harry's obsessive focus to keep Delphini out of harm's way, he had overlooked the obvious. Voldemort would be neutralized if Narcissa were taken.</p><p>Harry rose to his feet and reached for his Invisibility Cloak.</p><p>He received a text then.</p><p>From Voldemort.</p><p>Voldemort had never texted him before.</p><p><em>Still Alive</em>, it said. He tried calling, frantic. The calls wound up disconnected.</p><p>A ferret Patronus scampered into the Headmaster's office, to Harry.</p><p>It spoke with Draco's voice.</p><p>"Harry, the Manor was burned down by Fiendfyre. Voldemort managed to arrive in time to save me. He-" Draco's voice trembled. "He went willingly, because they had Mum and Scorpius."</p><p>In the funereal silence, Delphini came to Harry. He gathered her close.</p><p>Draco's voice continued to speak through the ferret. "Aunt Bella swore a new government in, at the Ministry. Griselda and Scrimgeour fled to Bath. Aunt Bella confirmed that the Interim Minister Weasley has escaped Glasgow."</p><p>The ferret vanished.</p><p>Snape brought up the Muggle-Wizarding Atlas and magnified the map of the two countries. Scrimgeour, Percy, and Griselda had retreated to Bath, giving up all bastions, including London.</p><p>"What is in Bath?" Remus wondered.</p><p>"It is the oldest known settlement of wizards in the country," Andromeda said softly. "They say that the first wand maker cut down an elder tree that grew alone on the banks of the Avon, and then Death came to his kind."</p><p>"There is both Muggle and Wizarding lore about the waters of Bath," Hermione said in a wobbly voice. "The ancient waters, they claim, contain therapeutic and transformative alchemical properties, ensorcelled to be so by the Roman Goddess, Minerva. Wizards claim that the Goddess was Death. <em>Aeld</em>, they called her, and in her honor they named the tree that was consecrated to her as <em>elder</em>."</p><p>Andromeda rose to her feet and came to Delphini.</p><p>Harry gripped his wand, prepared to cast a shield.</p><p>"Narcissa is as a cockroach," Andromeda told the girl, with a watery smile. "She survived her childhood. She survived two wars. As long as she lives, she will be his fiercest protector."</p><p>"They mean to use him as a negotiating chip, Delphini. He will not be harmed," Snape said softly, taking pity on the girl. "Bellatrix is <em>war</em>. They mean to use him to bring her to lay down arms."</p><p>Harry clung to that belief. He knew it was not so. Everyone now knew the tale of elder and its association to Bath. Harry, Snape, Delphini, and Aberforth knew another tale, of how the wand of elder had passed from Grindelwald to Dumbledore, and from Dumbledore to Voldemort.</p><p>"He has never called me his daughter," Delphini murmured, eyes cast down to the beech tree beneath which was buried Albus Dumbledore.</p><p>Wistful longing, nursed for years, burned in her as a guttering candle.</p><p>Voldemort did not know how one as Delphini could have been born of him. In his conversations with Harry, he had not once referred to her as his child. His magic spoke the truths he did not dare voice, as evergreen's lullaby. Hawthorn was the flower he feared to taint with his touch, even if it blossomed in abandon upon his trellises.</p><p>"He will need you," Harry told her. "You must not fall apart now."</p><p>"Why are you calm? Why aren't you frightened?" she demanded furiously.</p><p>Two stars had fallen together.</p><p>Harry's fate, as Voldemort's, was bound in Job's Coffin, in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. On their palms, crossed two lines of fate, marking the rune of <em>gebô</em>, of a gift born of sacred union, of an equilibrium of heart and will.</p><p>A maid alone in an ancient castle she was wedded to, tearful and shattered, at September's end.</p><p><em>A September to remember</em>, the Interim Ministry propaganda had promised.</p><p>He hugged the girl and whispered to her in Captain Barbossa's piratical accent, "Now is not the time to falter, poppet."</p><p>"Hoist the colors," she managed to say, with a wispy smile drawn of courage's last reserve.</p><p>-------------</p><p>"Tell us about the wand," Harry asked Aberforth.</p><p>It was the four of them: Snape, Harry, Delphini, and Aberforth, in the Headmaster's office. The portraits listened avidly.</p><p>"Once upon a time, there were three brothers."</p><p>In bated breath, ensnared by the story, they clung to Aberforth's words, as he spoke of Death's gifts.</p><p>Death.</p><p>The spirit that haunted the wand was <em>Death</em>. The wand-maker had cut down an elder tree, and had brought about mortality to his kind. Vengeful sentience that Death was, as the Castle, as the Obscurus that had fed on Harry's longing, she had hunted their ilk through time.</p><p>"A wand, a ring, a cloak."</p><p>Aberforth looked to the beech tree beneath which his brother had been entombed.</p><p>"In their youth, Albus and Grindelwald believed that possessing the three objects would grant one power over Death, the power to gift once more to our kind immortality. They found mortality senseless suffering. They were idealists once, holding that peace and prosperity would come to be when our time was not limited to mortal lifespans."</p><p>"You believe that Dumbledore's wand was this <em>Deathstick</em>," Delphini stated.</p><p>"There were myths that the Founders claimed descent from these brothers three," Aberforth said. "Albus was insistent that the wand must go to Voldemort. Grindelwald and he had researched the Hallows extensively. After Grindelwald's imprisonment, Albus continued to investigate."</p><p>Dumbledore had not been one to operate on baseless speculation. He had excelled at breaking down magic's traces, from consequence to origin. If he had believed that this wand was the one from lore, then he must have been certain of it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <strong>October 2021</strong> </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The first of October dawned with the beech turning soft carmine in autumn's canopy. Harry stood beneath the tree, and pressed his hand on the cold marble of Dumbledore's tomb.</p><p>"Praying?"</p><p>Snape came to stand beside him.</p><p>"If it helps," Harry muttered.</p><p>"Albus loathed being revered. I suspect he shall outright haunt you as a poltergeist if you resorted to prayer."</p><p>Dumbledore had never seen in himself the man they had loved and respected, frozen by the weighing, withering, killing guilt he had carried alone for decades. Ariana. Grindelwald. Only at life's end, on the Astronomy Tower, he had stood as a man liberated of guilt, and they had Voldemort's deception to thank for that.</p><p>"I am glad that you are coming with me," Harry said.</p><p>"You are dismal at negotiations," Snape retorted. "I cannot let you do something foolish, brave, dramatic, and unnecessary."</p><p>Harry could say the same to him.</p><p>Bellatrix had sworn in Draco as the Minister.</p><p>In violation of the laws of their land, to hear Hermione's opinion on the matter, but Bellatrix had an army.</p><p>Lucius had moved swiftly to urge the Irish Ministry to acknowledge the legitimacy of Draco's swearing-in. Rodolphus Lestrange had tirelessly negotiated to have the French Ministry do the same. From there on, the rest of the Continent had followed.</p><p>The Americans were holding off, waiting to see the finale, ever cautious when it came to picking sides.</p><p>Draco had set up the Joint Provincial Government, to administer the two countries separated by a wall of magic. His Ministry was comprised of men and women from the south of the Tweed. There was <em>no</em> government in Glasgow after Bellatrix had taken the capital.</p><p>Draco took care to call his administration a Joint Government, for the sake of international legitimacy and to avoid new insurrections in the middle of a bloody civil war.</p><p>Griselda and Percy had agreed to open negotiations.</p><p>"To Bath," Snape said, offering a port-key.</p><p>"To Bath," Harry agreed.</p><p>The port-key took them to Alexandra Park, atop a grassy hill overlooking the Avon and the ancient city of Bath. Harry had reviewed the map a thousand times with Snape, reviewing traps and wards.</p><p>Awaiting them at the hill's crest, on a field of daffodils, was Draco and Bellatrix.</p><p>"Severus, Harry," Draco greeted them.</p><p>Clad in black, run ragged by governance, Draco was the unhappiest Minister Harry had seen. Fudge had been chirpy. Griselda had seemed to relish her job. Percy had worn diligent duty well. Draco cut a grim and sorry picture of exhaustion.</p><p>Bellatrix, on the contrary, was arrayed in blue silk robes that would be more suitable to a tearoom or a garden party than to a civil war negotiation. The delicate lace at her neck and cuffs gave her an air of childlike innocence.</p><p>"No impulsiveness," Snape warned Bellatrix.</p><p>She raised an eyebrow. Harry considered it a mark of the gravity of their situation that she had not responded with the taunt that she had taken a <em>country</em> with fewer casualties than they had incurred to defend a village.</p><p>They descended the hill, to the valley of Prior Park, to their parley point, the Palladian Bridge.</p><p>On the covered bridge, at mid-mark, stood Percy and Griselda and Scrimgeour, wearing Bubblehead charms. Ducks waddled in the serpentine lake, oblivious to the civil war in the magical world.</p><p>"An exchange of the civilians you have taken captive, for pardons and safe passage to a country that can offer you refuge," Draco stated.</p><p>"A cessation of hostilities," Percy demanded. "The terrorists must lay down arms and surrender to the Aurors by All Hallows's Eve. The delegitimization of the false government which was sworn in by a coup must be carried out with immediate effect."</p><p>A coup. Harry did not know how Percy could speak that word with a straight face. The only coup in Glasgow had been of Percy's make.</p><p>"The saboteur Headmaster of Hogwarts must step down and submit to a trial in Glasgow on foreign espionage charges," Scrimgeour continued. "Harry Potter must answer for his violations of the border controls, his murder of Aurors and the Chief Warlock in Azkaban."</p><p>"You have <em>three</em> captives," Bellatrix cut in. "Civilian captives. As leverage goes, your hand is lacking."</p><p>"We also require-"</p><p>"She has an army at your gates," Harry pointed out helpfully, relishing the dark and sullen fury on Percy's face.</p><p>"A mutual cessation of hostilities until All Hallows's Eve," Griselda spoke. "The prisoners will be kept alive."</p><p>And it was then that Harry discerned the state of affairs.</p><p>Griselda wanted the wand. The Deathstick. She wanted to possess it on Halloween, on Death's Day. The wand switched allegiance when its master was defeated. She meant to duel Voldemort on Halloween.</p><p>"Keeping the prisoners alive may mean leaving them hanging to life by a thread," Bellatrix remarked. "Blackmail. Torture. Legilimency. Potions."</p><p>"We are not barbarians!" Percy spluttered.</p><p>Scrimgeour merely scowled. Harry's heart skipped a beat, as if someone had walked on his grave.</p><p>Griselda held his gaze as she said, "Narcissa and Scorpius are unharmed."</p><p>"What have you done to him?" Harry demanded, furious, shaking.</p><p>"This is war, Potter," Scrimgeour reminded him. "He was afforded treatment he has exacted upon others many a time."</p><p>Voldemort had no war left in him. He did not even possess dueling robes. He had not taught Delphini combat.</p><p>"A substitute for Scorpius," Bellatrix said, eyeing the waddling ducks on the serpentine lake as if deciding which one was dinner.</p><p>Draco turned to her in surprise. Snape was shaking his head in exasperation.</p><p>"Mr. Malfoy is valuable as a means of persuasion," Griselda said delicately. "We will not exchange him."</p><p>"Take Potter. Voldemort is besotted with him," Bellatrix bartered. "Potter for Scorpius. And thirty days of cessation of hostilities."</p><p>Snape bristled, and was about to speak, but Draco beat him to it. "Aunt Bella, we cannot-"</p><p>"Yes," Harry spoke up. "Yes, I consent to this exchange."</p><p>"Harry!" It was Snape.</p><p>Bellatrix had raised an army and conquered a country. She had gone to Azkaban for thirteen years in Voldemort's name. She had given him a child to anchor him to sanity. As Snape protected Harry, she had protected Voldemort, through war and peace.</p><p>Griselda shook her head, wary.</p><p>"We cannot accept this barter."</p><p>Scrimgeour and Percy did not agree with Griselda, it was clear. Harry was a war-prize and a negotiating chip more valuable to them than Scorpius could be, even if the lad was Draco's son.</p><p>"You are unruffled by your master's plight," Griselda said suspiciously.</p><p>"I have sworn in my nephew. I have secured the country. My daughter is safe at Hogwarts." She smiled, cutting a striking picture of silk-clad loveliness against the daffodils. "My army will see to the rest in thirty days."</p><p>"Your sister is in our keeping. There is no army that can grant you victory, Bellatrix," Scrimgeour reminded her.</p><p>"I survived thirteen years in Azkaban spreading my legs for every Auror and prisoner while my husband watched their games in helpless anguish." Bellatrix stared at Scrimgeour. "I remember your cock. It was a limp and shriveled thing. Little wonder you have resorted to civil war. One must compensate where one can."</p><p>Ruthless, vindictive survivor. However had Delphini been born of her?</p><p>"You bitch-"</p><p>"I killed your wife, Rufus," she went on, taunting. "I have your wife and children," she told Percy.</p><p>Harry intervened hastily before she could continue along that line of divulgence.</p><p>"The barter. Do we have agreement?"</p><p>--------</p><p>"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Snape demanded, shaking his shoulders. "Potter, I swear, keeping you alive is a Sisyphean task!"</p><p>"She is plotting something."</p><p>"She is always scheming. If she was good at it, she would not have spent thirteen years a whore in Azkaban!"</p><p>"Harry, Severus!" It was Draco, frazzled and terrified. "We cannot go ahead with this. They are outnumbered, desperate, and they know Aunt Bella will raze them to the ground in thirty days. We must not negotiate with terrorists. Even if-"</p><p>Even if, it meant Scorpius's safety. Draco was holding up bravely, though his mother and son were in enemy hands.</p><p>"Where is your demented aunt?" Snape enquired.</p><p>"She went fly fishing."</p><p>"In those robes?" Harry spluttered.</p><p>Draco frowned at him. "That is immaterial, Harry! We have more pressing concerns at the moment!"</p><p>Bellatrix joined them then, with a fly rod and reel, and a carp that must weigh at least ten pounds.</p><p>"Have you had fried carp before, Potter?"</p><p>Harry shook his head. Was carp edible? He had never heard of anyone eating carp.</p><p>"It shall make an excellent farewell dinner," she assured him, shoving the fish under an arm, and offering him her other hand in invitation.</p><p>"Potter," Snape said in exasperation.</p><p>"If it comes to war, make Percy pay for this," Harry told him. "And keep an eye on Delphini."</p><p>"For goodness's sake!"</p><p>"My daughter is in your hands, Snape," Bellatrix said quietly. "I am aware of the price you will exact in recompense."</p><p>Harry did not think Snape capable of cruelty to a child. And yet, hadn't Snape hated him once, because of who his father had been? Snape had changed, he reminded himself. Delphini would not come to harm. Snape would protect her as he had protected Dumbledore and Harry.</p><p>Draco was watching him in keen dismay. Harry offered him a wry grin. That it had come to <em>Draco</em> worrying about him!</p><p>He took Bellatrix's hand. They arrived before a picturesque and quaint cottage in the Cotswolds that reminded Harry of the Baggins residence in the Lord of the Rings films.</p><p>There were daffodils on the green.</p><p>"<em>Narcissus</em>. Flower of imminent death, the Greeks sang, for it was the last flower Persephone had plucked before Hades had taken her to the underworld. Our father named my sister for this flower, because the Healers believed she would die in the weeks after her birth, a sickly and pale babe she had been, as the white grave-flowers that decorated the tombs of our family."</p><p>This was the most she had spoken to Harry without mockery or command.</p><p>"Draco said that Delphini takes after her."</p><p>"Delphini noticed that Voldemort favored Narcissa. She began to look to my sister as an exemplar to gain his affection."</p><p>As children often did. Seeking parental approval, striving to please.</p><p>Bellatrix led him into the cottage. Low-ceilinged and cheery, with window beds of fragrant rosemary and thyme, it was not where he would have expected Bellatrix to live. Of the four walls of the sitting room, one was plastered with posters of Elvis Presley, one with posters of Lady Gaga, and another with posters of motorcycles, and the last with an assortment of Wizarding portraits of their family.</p><p>"She has come into her own," Bellatrix mused, noticing that Harry's eyes lingered on a childhood portrait of Delphini playing with a Crup. "She met you in the November of 2019, and then she met herself."</p><p><em>She met herself</em>. A strange phrasing of words, and yet apt. Delphini had met herself, the edges and lines of her psyche, in the months that had followed her first trip to Hogwarts.</p><p>Bellatrix led Harry to the garden. She raised a bonfire and set the carp on a spit, turning it about every now and then. Summoning two lawn chairs and a picnic umbrella, she bade Harry sit.</p><p>Her neighbors peeped through their lace and paisley curtains, expressions as disapproving as Petunia's.</p><p>Sirius. She reminded Harry of Sirius, in every brash and dramatic act.</p><p>Music began blaring, loud, disturbing the quiet peace of the village.</p><p>Carl Orff's <em>Carmina Burana</em>. Ron had been fond of playing <em>O Fortuna</em> whenever the Chudley Cannons were losing a match.</p><p>
  <em>Sors immanis, et inanis, rota tu volubilis.</em>
</p><p>Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel. Harry glanced at the lines that crossed his palm. <em>Gebô</em>, the rune of a gift born of sacred union, of equilibrium in exchange.</p><p>"Snape," Bellatrix said abruptly. "Dumbledore taught Snape. He did not teach your father or Sirius."</p><p>Snape had been Dumbledore's protege. He had learned at Dumbledore's knees of war and politics.</p><p>Voldemort had taught Bellatrix to wage war. If Sirius had joined Voldemort, would he have been favored over Bellatrix?</p><p>Why had Dumbledore favored Snape over Sirius? Was it favor, or was it a lack of favor? Perhaps Dumbledore's love was what had spared Sirius and James. Voldemort had not taught Delphini.</p><p>The carp was a coarse fish. It had little value to fine dining. One man's offal was another man's treasure. Anglers prized the fish for its difficulty to hook. Harry decided that he would not go out of his way to eat carp again, as he chewed on the oily, flaky flesh.</p><p>"What do you know of the Hallows, Potter?"</p><p>He swallowed a mouthful of the charred fish, and wondered how Voldemort might have prepared it.</p><p>"The wand," he said. "Griselda suspects that it is the purported wand of elder cut down from the tree the spirit of Death lived in."</p><p>"She means to win it in duel," she confirmed.</p><p>"She cannot be foolish as to meet Voldemort in duel."</p><p>Not unless Griselda had confidence that she could overpower Voldemort by All Hallows's Eve, that she would meet in duel a broken man.</p><p>"Bellatrix-"</p><p>She spat out a fish bone.</p><p>"Narcissa had been researching the matter of the Hallows since Dumbledore's death, since the wand of elder came to Voldemort. She believed that your cloak of invisibility was the cloak described in Death's mythos."</p><p>A wand. A ring. A cloak.</p><p>Harry's cloak was not like other Invisibility Cloaks, Snape had often claimed. It was indestructible by magic or elements.</p><p>"The night they stormed the Manor, Narcissa had been speaking to me. She claimed that she had tracked down the ring. She was trapped in the Fiendfyre because she lingered to destroy her researches."</p><p>Harry and Snape had seen the photographs Draco had sent of the manor and the grounds. Scorched earth had been Griselda's policy. Ash trees, burned down to stumps. Hawthorn, petrified black and gnarly, as Harry had once seen in a BBC documentary about the Petrified Forest in the United States. The House Elves had perished in the flames. Voldemort had managed to send Draco away with a port-key to Belfast, to his father, ordering him to join Bellatrix in London and negotiate for Narcissa's release. He had then surrendered, swearing on his magic to come peacefully if Narcissa and Scorpius were unharmed.</p><p>The sanctuary that Voldemort had known, since Abraxas's time, and all that was left of it were petrified trees in a field of ashes.</p><p>"You wish me to take the Cloak," Harry said, piecing together Bellatrix's strategy. "We don't know where the ring is. We don't know what Griselda has learned of the Hallows. Her ambition may not be limited to possessing the wand."</p><p>Death's mastery, by possession of the hallows three.</p><p>"Narcissa has the ring, Potter. On All Hallows's Eve, I shall cross the Avon with the army. I need you to draw their attention away from her, until then. They must not know what she holds."</p><p>On All Hallows's Eve, when Bellatrix crossed the Avon, the Hallows three would be in Bath. A wand. A ring. A cloak.</p><p>What then? Even if they were to unite the hallows, if Voldemort was in no state to duel, if they held Narcissa hostage, what could tip the odds in their favor? Griselda would slaughter the three of them, knowing that all was lost when the army crossed the river. Bellatrix had no advantage, but that of force. Griselda's strategy was based in her confidence that she would master the wand on the night the brokered cessation of hostilities ended.</p><p>Snape would hate this plan.</p><p>"A gamble," Harry stated.</p><p>"If he cannot," Bellatrix said softly, looking up at the stars of Job's coffin, at the two in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. "If they have broken him, it shall fall to you."</p><p>Harry closed his eyes, as the grim resignation in Bellatrix's tone brought to him a bitter realization. She meant to end the war, even if it claimed Voldemort and Narcissa.</p><p>Scorpius could not have wielded the wand. She knew that, and had sought to exchange him for Harry.</p><p>Dumbledore and Voldemort had been confident that Harry was the only other who could. Bellatrix wanted him to claim the Hallows and end the war, if Voldemort was broken.</p><p>"You went to Azkaban for thirteen years, in his name."</p><p>"Here." She passed him three pills. Cyanide. "Take my mercy with you."</p><p>
  <em>hac in hora, sine mora, corde pulsum tangite;</em><br/>
<em>quod per sortem, sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite!</em>
</p><p>The song reached the crescendo of Fate's cruelty, as man lamented in vain. <em>Now it is your time. Waste no more time. Pluck these poor strings and let go. Since the strongest fall the longest, let the world share in my woe.</em></p><p>The Avon was to be their Rubicon then.</p><p>How many rivers had Harry crossed since the pandemic had begun?</p><p>By the Tweed, Harry had saved Delphini. Between the Poddle and the Liffay rivers had been the Wizarding Hospice where Lucius had been saved by Voldemort's innovative use of the Cruciatus. By the Sava and the Danube, at the confluence of the rivers in Belgrade, Harry had chosen the One. By the Peignitz, Delphini had smiled for the first time since Nat Rosier's death, at one of Harry's mediocre jokes. Voldemort had been standing on the Westminster bridge upon the Thames the last time Harry had seen him.</p><p>What had begun by the Tweed would end by the Avon.</p><p>Bellatrix grabbed his right hand and opened the palm, and stared at the fate-lines of the rune of <em>gebô</em> for a long moment.</p><p>"War shall not be the inheritance we leave her, Potter."</p><p>----------</p><p>The exchange of prisoners was conducted on the Palladian bridge. Scorpius, shaken and frightened, visibly worse for the wear, rushed into Draco's arms.</p><p>"Hold the line," Harry told Snape, this fellow-bearer of hawthorn who had guarded him for four decades.</p><p>He then walked to where Scrimgeour stood, and handed his wand over. Manacles came to fetter his wrists and ankles. Charms rifled him, head to toe, searching for weaponry or magical objects.</p><p>They did not detect the Cloak on him. They did not detect the pills of cyanide stashed behind his teeth.</p><p>"The cessation of hostilities shall be in effect immediately," Draco declared.</p><p>"Until All Hallows's Eve," Scrimgeour stated.</p><p>"Until All Hallows's Eve," Bellatrix concurred.</p><p>---------</p><p>Jeering and yelled profanities greeted Harry as they entered the city.</p><p>Percy awaited him in the courtyard of the Royal Crescent of Bath. He was flanked by Aurors of the Glasgow Ministry. Fred and George were there too.</p><p>"Have you been to Bath before, Harry?" Percy asked courteously, as if they were at Molly's Christmas dinner.</p><p>Percy knew that Harry had not been to Bath.</p><p>"I have not visited the city before."</p><p>They were worse for the wear, these gaunt men who had fled Glasgow in the wake of the invasion. Spite marked them. And grief. They had lost families in this civil war.</p><p>There would be no mercy here.</p><p>Harry had done his utmost to compartmentalize what they must have done to Voldemort, to avenge their loss. In the Royal Crescent, surrounded by vengeful and mourning men, his nerve faltered.</p><p>"Welcome to the city of Bath."</p><p>He was taken to one of the terraced houses. They tickled the portrait of a sullen-faced woman, and shoved him into the cell that was revealed. The portrait clanged shut behind them.</p><p>"Harry."</p><p>"Narcissa."</p><p>She was seated in a corner of the room, drawn into a huddle, shivering, and blood stained her housecoat and skirts.</p><p>"Not mine," she hastened to say, as Harry rushed to her in alarm.</p><p>If it was not hers, then it was Voldemort's. Harry sank to the floor beside her, horrified.</p><p>"Where is he?"</p><p>"They have their sport with him during the day," she said, dispassionate in tone and mien. "He is returned at eight or nine in the night, depending on their...enthusiasm."</p><p>Her eyes betrayed her. They were swollen red from weeping.</p><p>There was a dog's cage, a construct of wood, in the corner across them. Horrified, Harry got to his feet and went to it.</p><p>Ash was the bars, and hawthorn the roof, and on its floor was strewn a thick mat of holly's leaves.</p><p>It was smaller than the cupboard under the stairs had been.</p><p>"Narcissa-"</p><p>His voice was high-strung. Light-headed, he sank to the floor in a slump, sick to the stomach as he realized the purpose of the cage. <em>Ash, hawthorn, holly</em>.</p><p>"We need to get him out," he said flatly.</p><p>He was fiercely glad that Delphini was safe at Hogwarts, married to a sentient castle that would protect her.</p><p>"We must wait."</p><p>Narcissa spoke as one who had waited patiently for more than thirteen years to bring her cause home. Harry examined her discreetly.</p><p>Thin, near-emaciated, pale, as magical as a Squib, she wore neither wedding ring nor the insignia of her family as brooch or locket. She had not Sirius's or Bellatrix's dashing flair, or Andromeda's maternal demeanor, or Draco's approachability, or Delphini's ebullient spirits. If Harry had passed her on the street, he would have found her altogether unremarkable. And yet, she was the most remarkable woman of this era; the architect of the peace in their times. The quiet, retiring, cold and introverted reserve of her reminded him of Voldemort.</p><p>"Her wand came to you," she said.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"It was hewn from the hawthorn in my gardens. The trees came to be in 1971, when I wept for a man whose soul and magic and sanity unravelled before me. They were drawn from the earth by magic's manifestation of my grief."</p><p>"For it is hawthorn that heals the broken heart," Harry said softly.</p><p>"They say that, don't they?" she said, with a faint and unhappy smile. "There was no healing then."</p><p>"In inevitability's grip, I waited, watching the two men who raised me veer closer to death and insanity, day after day. I waited up, on All Hallows's Eve, and he did not come home. I buried Abraxas under my hawthorn, without funeral or rite. On New Year's Eve, Lucius returned to me castrated and frightened. I wrote to my sister in Azkaban, and my letters were unanswered. Later, her husband would tell me that the Aurors read my letters aloud to her, as they broke her. <em>Let us take Draco and move to France, to the Americas, to Belgium,</em> Lucius begged me. I gave him Draco and then bade him leave me to my cause."</p><p>"I came to Privet Drive then, where a little boy toiled in the midday sun in a garden of petunias and lilies."</p><p>Startled, Harry leaned forward to hear her tale.</p><p>"I healed his soul in your scar. Hawthorn bloomed on yew's evergreen, and his soul turned whole."</p><p>"I had no cure for a broken heart," she went on, amused and saddened and puzzled. "I did not understand the manner and make of a love as theirs. My temperament did not lend itself to a comprehension of these matters. <em>Broken</em>, I had called myself. <em>It is what it is</em>, Voldemort had said, clumsy in his attempts to reassure me that my nature did not matter."</p><p>Asexual, Delphini had said of Narcissa. Not of a romantic bent, Snape had stated. With no inclination towards sex or romance, little wonder that Narcissa did not understand the depth and complexity of the love that had been Voldemort's sanctuary once.</p><p>In the modern era, even when there was more nuanced understanding of sexuality and orientation in popular culture, thanks to the viral effects of social media discourse, there yet remained social barriers to extending acceptance and kindness to children who came to see that their desires and preferences did not match the more common cohorts. Voldemort, unstudied in this aspect of human nature, had attempted to do his best to ensure that Narcissa was not demarcated alien.</p><p>"Their harmony was called a perversion, then. Our society tolerated it poorly, quietening their disapproval because of Abraxas's influence. I may not understand the make or manner of these affairs, but I had not seen marriages holier than theirs."</p><p>Harmony. A strange word to describe a relationship. And yet, apt. Narcissa did not hold with judgements of convention or precedence, having no interest in sex or romance. A marriage holy, in her eyes, even if it had been perversion to the world. She had financed the film adaptation of E.M.Forster's <em>Maurice</em>, in their memory.</p><p>"<em>For it is hawthorn that heals</em>, my mother had been fond of saying. Bedridden, sentenced to death, she read to me tales of Beedle the Bard, and poppies grew in our wretched yard even though she had not been allowed outside, even though her wand had been broken. <em>Tell me about flowers, Mama</em>, I would implore her, and she would speak to me of hawthorn - she called them mayflowers. Hawthorn had not healed her heart's senseless, bitter ruin. I considered her deluded then."</p><p>"The wand of hawthorn came to you, in 2021, forty years after Godric's Hollow, half a century after I had raised the trees with my tears."</p><p>Sacred union was the rune on Harry's palm. In the stars, on his palms, in the heart of his wand, in Delphini's life, in the holly that spangled evergreen's mourning, the truth was writ. However, it was not to those that Voldemort had looked to. He had only looked to Harry's choice.</p><p>At world's turn, by the Avon, Harry looked not to fate inscribed in the stars, upon skin, within wands, or astride magic, but only to Voldemort's choice, reaffirmed quietly in deed after deed from the first night they had clasped hands at Swanage.</p><p>There was a creaking as the portrait began to shift. Narcissa sent him a warning glance.</p><p>"Mrs. Malfoy, Mr. Potter."</p><p>Proudfoot. Savage. Williamson. Aurors Harry knew from Umbridge's tenure at Hogwarts.</p><p>They dragged in Voldemort and shoved him into the cage. The bars came alive to bind him by the limbs. The roof shifted to loop a gyve about his neck. The leaves of holly sharpened as shards of glass, tearing into him. His eyes were wide open, blinded by magic. Harry had cast that charm on him before, in pleasure's play, but the expressiveness in his gaze had not then been wiped vacant by pain's extremum.</p><p>Searing rage roared in Harry, but Narcissa's grip was as a vice on his wrist, restraining. Prudence. Patience. Perseverance. They could not afford to throw away their desperate plan in impulse.</p><p>Savage spoke a spell, conjuring an intubation apparatus that attached to the cage.</p><p>"That shan't be necessary," Narcissa said.</p><p>"We have orders, Mrs. Malfoy."</p><p>"Bellatrix has your families," Harry said, shifting between the Aurors and the cage. "Are you certain you wish to bring yourselves to her attention as the ones who tortured him?"</p><p>He lied. He had no idea if Bellatrix had taken their families. She may well have burned their houses down and thrown the carcasses into the River Clyde, vengeful beast of war that she was. Yet, the picture he painted was not an impossible one. Fear and doubt entered their gazes. Harry knew they were thinking of the fate of the Longbottoms.</p><p>They retreated.</p><p>As the portrait shut closed, Narcissa moved to the cage.</p><p>"Voldemort," Harry whispered, trying to keep his voice from shaking, kneeling, reaching to grab a fettered wrist. The limb flinched, but had nowhere to pull away to. Frightened, Harry let go.</p><p>"They have placed a deafness charm on him. He cannot hear you," Narcissa informed him.</p><p>"His magic," Harry murmured, stricken. Voldemort's magic had not betrayed him before. He used it delicately and effortlessly as a sixth sense.</p><p>"The wood contains his magic," Narcissa replied.</p><p><em>By ash, hawthorn and holly bound, he lives and dies</em>, Delphini had said in Azkaban. A prophecy she had fabricated, and it had come to be. Elm was a psychic's wood, Aberforth had said. Prophets were crones once maids who had not known a man's embrace, Snape had held.</p><p>"They have broken his wrists and fingers. You must be careful with your touch. Here, let me show you how."</p><p>She reached through the bars carefully, and brushed the back of her hand gentle against Voldemort's brow. He moved into her touch without flinching away.</p><p>Harry staggered away, nauseated. He could not-</p><p>
  <em>"You see I've been through the desert,</em><br/>
<em>On a horse with no name,</em><br/>
<em>It felt good to be out of the rain."</em>
</p><p>Unlike Delphini, Narcissa had a fine singing voice. Mellow and musical, her song fell as chords of mercy. Harry turned blindly, and inhaled in surprise. Voldemort's hand was at her throat, and it was bleeding with bones protruding, but she continued to sing, even of tone and unafraid. Her hands were clasped soft and sure about his, bracing his wrist.</p><p>Her voice. He could feel the reverberations of her voice in her throat as she sang, against the torn skin of his palm.</p><p>Bright-eyed, resolute, she continued to sing of a horse with no name, until pain's vacantness receded from his expression, bringing bitter lucidity in its wake.</p><p>"In the desert, you cannot remember your name," he breathed. His voice was hoarse, as if he had screamed himself silent, again and again. A smile flickered across Narcissa's features. She began to sing again.</p><p>
  <em>"In the desert, you can't remember your name,</em><br/>
<em>Because there ain't no-one to give you no pain."</em>
</p><p>So they spoke in song's susurrations on skin, and Harry knew why hawthorn had bloomed upon yew.</p><p>"Scorpius?" Voldemort asked.</p><p>"No," she enunciated clearly, so that Voldemort could read the consonants from the movement of her throat.</p><p>She beckoned Harry forth.</p><p>"I don't want to hurt him," he said, drawing near and squatting beside her, but frightened to worsen the state Voldemort was reduced to.</p><p>"I am here," she reassured Harry softly.</p><p>"I know you are here," Voldemort said, smiling despite the wounded, mutilated misery of him. "You, my balm, of then and now."</p><p>The sincerity in his voice flayed. Narcissa's expression crumpled, but her voice was cheerful and level as she replied, "I demand Cullen Skink, as soon as we are away from here."</p><p>Haddock. Voldemort hated haddock. It reminded him of the fish and chips he had found in skip-bins as a starving child in the middle of a war. He had put aside his visceral revulsion to fry up fish and chips with haddock for Harry at Swanage. He had prepared Cullen Skink for Narcissa.</p><p>That emboldened Harry. He let Narcissa clasp his wrist and bring his open palm to Voldemort's mouth. Harry shut his eyes in grief as Voldemort's lips trembled.</p><p>"Harry."</p><p>The bright flame of tenderness in his voice as he spoke Harry's name, disbelieving and wearied and frightened, was a starker truth than any writ on the skies or on lines of fate upon skin.</p><p>Voldemort pressed a kiss to the core of Harry's palm, a gesture that belonged in Swanage, that belonged to a time when he had been held safe in Harry's arms.</p><p>"Good. Very good," Narcissa said soothingly. "Harry is scared to hurt you. Speak to him."</p><p>Harry staved off a sob and faced his heart. If this was to be their end, he would not turn away.</p><p>"I am unsure what to speak of, Harry," Voldemort said, amused. "My days have been dreary in this establishment."</p><p>Narcissa laughed, despite herself, and Voldemort's smile stretched livelier as he felt the reverberations of her laugh against his skin. "The portrait is of Jane Austen."</p><p>Harry thumbed the crease of the smile Voldemort wore, greedy beast that he was, and the crinkles under his hand fed his despairing heart with hope.</p><p>"She despised Bath and she despised magic. I cannot imagine her portrait pleased by the renewed interest in her old home she was keen to be rid of, bound to serve the will of her new masters to keep old men in cages."</p><p>Old men in cages. The Americans, Rose had said, had kept children in cages. It had something to do with a caravan that did not exist, she had explained, though the entire story had gone over Harry's poor head.</p><p>"Jane Austen? <em>Persuasion</em>!" Narcissa exclaimed.</p><p>"You loathed that novel," Voldemort remarked. "You said it had no merit."</p><p><em>Persuasion</em> had been one of Dumbledore's favorite novels. Harry had listened to the audiobook during a snowstorm in Aberdeen in 2014. <em>You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope,</em> Captain Wentworth had told Anne, after eight and a half years of separation. Theirs had been a love beyond youth's blush, bloomed and withered and nursed to bloom once more.</p><p>"I was a child. <em>She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning,</em>" Narcissa said brightly.</p><p>"Anne Elliot reminded me of you," Voldemort said. The fondness in his voice was the same as when he spoke to Delphini, and yet made more nuanced by the sympathy that emerged between two of similar ilk.</p><p>"I was eminently sensible," Narcissa protested.</p><p>That startled Voldemort into laughter, but the gyve about his collar choked. Harry palmed his cheek and brow, in soft caresses, providing what balm he may in touch's kindness.</p><p>"<em>My sore throats, you know, are always worse than anybody's,</em>" Voldemort rallied mischievously.</p><p>Harry burst into laughter at the innuendo, before risking a rueful glance at Narcissa.</p><p>"If only you did not insist upon cock before breakfast," she said with a straight face.</p><p>Harry had to grab Voldemort and brace him by the torso and shoulders before he laughed and choked himself once more.</p><p>They passed the night with <em>Persuasion</em> and banter, until Voldemort fell into exhausted sleep.</p><p>It was then, and only then, that Narcissa buried her head in her hands and wept quietly, careful to not awaken the sleeping man they held dear. Society's ways chipped away by their plight and banter and the one they loved, Harry moved to take her in his arms, so that she may muffle her sobs against his shoulder.</p><p>"I apologize," she murmured.</p><p>"You must not," Harry told Narcissa frankly. "I could not have done what you did."</p><p>She had deftly steered Voldemort from pain's vacant disorientation to lucidity, easing his return to awareness, and then gently led him to dreamless sleep with words of wit and songs more powerful than any spell or potion.</p><p>"He swore to oppose nothing that they wrought on him, as long as I was unharmed," she said, voice taut in helpless fury. "I did not-"</p><p>Guilt seared her. Guilt had settled deep in Delphini after lashing out with the Cruciatus on her father on the cracked stones of the temple, after the deaths in the Battle for Hogsmeade. Guilt had its claws in Hermione after Minerva's sacrifice.</p><p>"It was not your fault," Harry told Narcissa, as he had told Delphini and Hermione.</p><p>"I convinced him to choose Griselda over Lucius."</p><p>And it had been the right decision for their country then. Griselda was a competent administrator who had steered their economy to a positive trajectory and built back a war-torn land into peace's prosperity.</p><p>Cross-border roundtable for undesirable pandemics. Griselda and Percy had plotted a cross-border coup while the rest of them had been focused on a pandemic that had killed hundreds and left many more as squibs.</p><p>How could anyone have foreseen this two decades ago?</p><p>By the Avon, their peace's reckoning had come due.</p><p>-------</p><p>Days blurred into each other, notable only by the toll exacted on Voldemort by vengeful enemies. Their sport varied. Some days, he was returned to the cage with his senses, with sight and hearing and speech, and some days without. He was fed potions to regrow bone and ligament, so that they could be shattered once more the next day.</p><p>Narcissa was steady throughout, light in speech and song, bringing him back to her again and again, from the halls of dissociation he fled to. Under her direction, Harry learned to soothe and calm, without allowing his own misery and grief to touch Voldemort. It was no trivial task, given how astute Voldemort's perception had ever been, even if he remained dismal at interpretation and clumsy in reaction.</p><p>In the brief moments as he was dragged from cell's threshold to cage, his magic would come to embrace Narcissa and Harry, as sweep of evergreen's lullaby, startlingly lovely in that dark pit of war's make. The act brought Harry to tears each time, but Narcissa held the line. Her imperturbability was Voldemort's anchor, so imperturbable she remained.</p><p>"I preferred the days when I worried over your ardency to court an Obscurial," she said one night, when Voldemort was waking from pain to sense on the wings of her song.</p><p>"Cruel days were those," Voldemort remarked, eyes bright as he cast a gaze at Harry. "I fed him and sheltered him, and took him to bed. He went away, in a bid to find the One."</p><p>"Shut up," Harry muttered, picking away sharp leaves of holly slicing into Voldemort's body. His hands were bloodied by nicks and cuts, but better his flesh than Voldemort's.</p><p>"Oh, you cannot imagine that I will let you live that down," Voldemort teased him, and the fond warmth of his voice stung.</p><p>It was the night of the thirtieth. The last night before All Hallows's Eve. Narcissa and Harry were resolved to hold Voldemort in oblivion of their morrow's end.</p><p>The subject of Harry's oblivious search for the One never failed to elicit a response from Voldemort. So Harry roosted to that topic.</p><p>"Did he at least tell you?" he asked Narcissa curiously.</p><p>"I read it in his magic," she replied, entertained. "I am surprised that you did not observe it earlier, Harry. I remember him artless and unguarded, much to the dismay of the society he mingled among once."</p><p>"It was not as if I had a reference."</p><p>"You dated every gay man in Scotland," Voldemort reminded him. "You edited gay erotica."</p><p>"I had all the wrong references," Harry amended, laughing. "I was utterly unprepared for you."</p><p>It was the truth.</p><p>"I wonder if Bella has been throwing heads and entrails over the river," Narcissa mused.</p><p>"Well, she has blockaded the supply tunnels," Voldemort replied. "They were grumbling about it."</p><p>"Listening to gossip amidst torture? They must be losing their touch," Narcissa said wryly, gentling her words with a soft kiss to his wrist.</p><p>"Inexperienced ones," Voldemort said.</p><p>Harry knew what that meant. The experienced were preparing for war and had no time to waste on sport.</p><p>"I preferred the experienced ones," Voldemort went on, disgruntled.</p><p>"How the mighty have fallen," Narcissa remarked.</p><p>"They are ignorant of anatomical limits. Thankfully, they have Poppy Pomfrey with them. I understand now why Minerva liked her. She is a sensible woman."</p><p>There must be Veritaserum in Voldemort's bloodstream. He was not given to easy divulgence, particularly when it related to the sport they wrought on him, careful as he was to shield Harry and Narcissa from any inferences they had not themselves made.</p><p>Veritaserum meant Griselda.</p><p>"What did Griselda want?" Harry asked quietly.</p><p>"My wedding ring," Voldemort said. The grief in his mien was an old elegy spun of decades. "She wanted my wedding ring."</p><p>The ring Abraxas had bought from Morfin Gaunt.</p><p>Gaunt.</p><p>Slytherin.</p><p>Aberforth had said there were myths that the Founders had descended from the brothers three.</p><p>Bellatrix had been confident that Narcissa knew the whereabouts of the ring of the Hallows. She had asked Harry to shield Narcissa and the secret of the hallow.</p><p>"What did you tell Griselda?" Harry demanded. Narcissa was pale, eyes wide in terror.</p><p>Voldemort stirred, shifting from lucidity to pain's wretched dissociation. Harry cupped his cheeks and asked again, "What did you tell Griselda?"</p><p>"I cannot remember," Voldemort said, uncertain and alarmed. Harry kissed his knuckles to hide his horror. They had Obliviated him.</p><p>-------</p><p>"All Hallows's Eve," Narcissa said, rising to her feet, pacing.</p><p>Her housecoat and skirts were stained by dust and blood, but she cut a striking picture nevertheless; spine of steel and eyes as bright as the stars of her family. She had been named for grave-flowers, because her father had not believed that she would survive infancy.</p><p>"Delphini and Scorpius clamored to watch <em>Krull</em> on this night every year, when they had been children. They liked pumpkins," she reminisced.</p><p>"They were lured by Bella's dramatic manner of carving," Voldemort recounted.</p><p>He had been stripped of sight that day.</p><p>Harry could see that Voldemort keenly sensed the killing, withering weight on them. Voldemort's hand had sought Harry again and again, grasping futile through bars of ash, bound as he was. Harry had caught his hand and squeezed in a paltry attempt at reassurance.</p><p>"What is it?" Voldemort finally asked. "The two of you are grimmer than mourners at a funeral."</p><p>"Mourners at a funeral are rarely grim," Narcissa muttered.</p><p>"Harry?" Voldemort urged. "I wish to know."</p><p>A pill of cyanide rested behind Harry's teeth, and another behind Narcissa's. The third, they had, after vehement argument, discarded. Narcissa had been obstinate, saying that it would merely alarm Voldemort and lead him to some impulsive and reckless act to get Harry and her away from Bath, should they give him the pill. Harry knew that she was right. Voldemort's reckless impulse when it came to protecting those he loved had led to two wars and to Godric's Hollow.</p><p><em>Every man deserved to know his end</em>, Dumbledore had held. And if this were to be theirs-</p><p>"Griselda means to duel you tonight, for the wand," Harry said, words tripping over each other. Narcissa's disapproval was evident though she did not gainsay him.</p><p>Voldemort remained silent, frown marking his brow, as he mulled over Harry's words.</p><p>"Refrain from impulse," Narcissa warned. "Bella has an army at the gates. There is no cause for alarm."</p><p>Proudfoot and Savage came in then.</p><p>"Mrs. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, you shall be accompanying me to the viewing box." Proudfoot turned to Voldemort. "You require some modifications," he leered.</p><p>"Modifications?" Narcissa asked.</p><p>Voldemort screamed as spells fell upon him. There was not a speck of blood on him. What had they done?</p><p>"You cut off his Achilles tendons," Narcissa said furiously. "How is he to duel if he cannot <em>walk</em>?"</p><p><em>Hold the line.</em> Harry prayed that he could hold the line. </p><p>"And his wrist extensor tendons," Proudfoot informed. "We wouldn't wish to be asymmetric in our attention, would we?"</p><p>Narcissa's palm came to Harry's wrist, staying his fury. </p><p>"I wish to say goodbye," she replied, shifting to imperturbable calm once more.</p><p>Proudfoot nodded.</p><p>"I don't wish to say goodbye," Voldemort said, and the unhidden worry in his features frightened Harry.</p><p>"Anne Elliott," Narcissa reminded him. She knelt before the cage and took his hands in hers, fingers resting gently along the torn tendons.</p><p>"<em>After nine days, I let the horse run free</em>," she sang to him, voice hitching on the words, facade finally surrendering to emotion.</p><p>Voldemort pressed his brow to the bars wrought of ash. The pleading in his sightless gaze was as a desperate animal's, one that knew it would be culled on the streets.</p><p>"You, my balm, of then and now," Narcissa vowed, and pressed her lips to his brow in benediction.</p><p>"Take him to the Crescent," Savage ordered.</p><p>---------</p><p>Harry and Narcissa were manacled and escorted to the viewing box arranged on an elevated podium atop the entablature of the terraced house, overlooking the greens of the Crescent and the park beyond. They could see the river curling lazy under the silver of moonlight. Ghastly-carved pumpkins held candles along the perimeter of the Crescent's empty green.</p><p>How many Muggle Repelling charms had they cast?</p><p>Narcissa shivered in the autumn breeze.</p><p>"A warming charm?" Proudfoot asked helpfully, and cast one upon her.</p><p>War was good men fighting ignoble causes. <em>Geezers sending boys to die</em>, Ron had said harshly, when they had been watching footage of the Syrian war and drone attacks.</p><p>Percy and Scrimgeour joined them.</p><p>"Harry. Mrs. Malfoy," Percy greeted them, cosy-clad in wools his mother had once knitted for him.</p><p>Harry could not understand the man. Hermione had often stated that Harry failed to sympathize with the ambitious because his primary goals in life had been to find the One and live out their days in peace together.</p><p>Griselda stood on the green, under the yellow moon, by a stump of elder. Voldemort was escorted to her, dragged through mud and grass and cobblestone, supported heavily by the Aurors that accompanied him. Even across the distance that separated them, Harry knew the sweep of yew's evergreen upon the air. It meant to mend the flesh and bones that it lived in.</p><p>Scrimgeour cast a voice amplification charm and shouted, "No healing is permitted. We shall kill Mrs. Malfoy should you dare overcome the limitations imposed on you today."</p><p>Narcissa caught Harry's eye, shaking her head minutely. <em>Not yet</em>. In the cold night, Harry's palms were clammy with sweat. All relied on a fool's chance. However could Narcissa remain unruffled? On the river, red blinked the floating detonators Fred and George had rigged up as a circumference of protection. Concealed in the tree-line were the anti-broomstick spells that Williamson and Savage had devised based on Muggle Anti-Aircraft Systems. A month's cessation of hostilities had allowed them to turn the city into an unassailable stronghold. Bellatrix had an army, but the siege would not be broken until the city starved.</p><p>It fell to Narcissa and Harry to unite the Hallows. It fell to Voldemort to retain the wand of elder until Harry and Narcissa had an opening to act.</p><p>In the crescent, Aurors handed Voldemort his wand. With his tendons torn, his physical grip was weak and unsteady, but his magic curled about wood sure.</p><p>"Death transfers the wand, Griselda," he told his opponent. "There was no need to stage this production. You have had me at death's door for weeks."</p><p>"Oh, but there is a need for rite and ritual, Voldemort," she said pleasantly. "I forget that is not your name. <em>Tom</em>."</p><p>A short and wizened woman should not have cut the imposing picture she did. Her shadow was larger than her, in the moonlight, and it cast itself upon Voldemort's form.</p><p>"Names have power," she said. "We become our names, over the years of our lives. And you have not known a name that became you, then or now. As a beggar in ill-fitting rags, you walked through the names given to you, through the names you chose in futility."</p><p><em>A horse with no name</em>, Narcissa had sung.</p><p>Voldemort kept his eyes fixed on her, sightless though he was, and his magic was strung taut in anticipation of her first spell.</p><p>"Do you know the origin of my name?" she enquired. "<em>Gris</em>, for the grey I would live to be. <em>æld</em>, for the elder that was my bloodline inheritance."</p><p>"Antioch Peverell," Narcissa whispered, turning pale.</p><p>Peverell. The name Harry had seen on a tombstone at Godric's Hollow. The name Aberforth had spoken of, in the tale of the brothers three.</p><p>"The wand-maker," Narcissa explained. "He cut down the first tree, the Elder."</p><p>Standing beside a stump of ancient elder, that Death had once haunted, Griselda lifted her wand of rowan.</p><p>"I want the wand. I want the hallows." Griselda smiled at Voldemort. "What is in a name?"</p><p>"My name," Voldemort said, surprised.</p><p>"You aren't a fool, even if your acts have been folly. <em>A flight from Death</em>, you named yourself. You defied Death once on All Hallows's Eve. I mean to offer you to Death, under All Hallows's moon, in exchange for restoring immortality to our kind that was stripped away when Antioch cut the elder." She drew nearer. "On that stump yonder, I shall have you staked, to appease an ancient betrayal. I must thank you for this clever solution. You healed the Castle with blood price, wedding Salazar's descendant to her."</p><p>"The duel serves no purpose," Voldemort pointed out. "You merely need threaten your hostages and I would not oppose your intent."</p><p>"The duel serves a purpose," she replied. "Death exults in the defiant bowed low in defeat."</p><p>Narcissa's hand crept into Harry's. Voldemort, they knew, did not have the physical coordination to shield or swerve. The wand of elder was not loyal to him. His magic would be his sole defense.</p><p>"Expelliarmus!" Griselda shouted.</p><p>The wand of elder jerked in response to her command, but Voldemort's magic staved off the tide, evergreen slipping through rowan's noose.</p><p>"Why didn't you take it from Dumbledore?" Voldemort shouted, striving to engage her in conversation to distract.</p><p>"The Castle's magic protected him. You know as well as I do what her sentience can wreak to guard the Headmaster wedded to her. I could not have won. When the wand came to you, you were at your weakest, with the yew willingly broken to save the girl, unable to claim mastery over the elder. I saw my opportunity."</p><p>Griselda's next curse was the Cruciatus.</p><p>Narcissa inhaled sharply and her fingers curled in pressure about Harry's, and a ring came to him.</p><p>Her eyes were on the river. The detonators were no longer blinking red. The moonlight no longer shimmered on the serpentine weave of water.</p><p>It was time.</p><p>Scrimgeour and the Aurors were focused on the duel below.</p><p>A wind rustled through the treeline. Ash was the woods about the Crescent, by the riverbanks, and ash had been Abraxas's wand. There had been love in the ancient forests when a mean spirit knew solace under groves of ash trees. There had been love in the manor's arboreal grove of ash, where once two had sung to each other paeans of the heart.</p><p>It was time.</p><p>The next curse Griselda cast sliced neat into Voldemort's ribs and he doubled over, wand falling to the grass. She walked to him, assured but cautious, and a hunting owl crossed the yellow face of the full moon. The Patronus Harry possessed, and shared with Delphini.</p><p>In the moon's veiling, the stars drew forth, from the constellation of Delphinus, and there were two agleam.</p><p>Spell-light wove through the trees, as the invasion began.</p><p>"The river!" Scrimgeour shouted. "To the river!"</p><p>"There is no river," Percy said; he was the cleverest of them, quick to put together the pieces. "Bellatrix dammed the river!"</p><p>
  <em>"I was looking at a river bed, </em><br/>
<em>and the story it told of a river that flowed,</em><br/>
<em>made me sad to think it was dead."</em>
</p><p>Narcissa's voice, sweet and low, soulful, came to Harry as a spell as potent as the Cruciatus Griselda unleashed below.</p><p>It was time.</p><p>On song, in the curl of fingers about his, on autumn's wind, he saw the potent sweep of evergreen, without a name, pained and grieving and desperate, channeled to direction by hawthorn's grace, and of it he drew, to summon silently his wand. It came to him, that wand which had healed, hewn of the tree a young girl had wept into being in a madman's last sanctuary.</p><p>"I wish I could be merciful," Griselda told Voldemort, as combat began in the woods, as Scrimgeour led his men into bitter battle under a veiled moon.</p><p>Hunched over on his knees, Voldemort looked up at her, pinpointing her accurately despite his sightlessness.</p><p>"Narcissa," Harry said softly, wishing that there was another way, knowing that there was none.</p><p>"Now!" Narcissa shouted.</p><p>With his wand of hawthorn, Harry leapt off the entablature, into free-fall. He was not afraid. Voldemort's magic caught him and lowered him safely to the rolling green.</p><p>Griselda turned, shocked.</p><p>"Kill him!" Percy shouted. Green flashed about Harry, hitting the cobblestones and the green inches from him. "Kill him now!"</p><p>Fiendfyre broke through the tree-line, vengeful and resolute.</p><p>Bellatrix.</p><p>Harry drew out his Invisibility Cloak and rushed to drape it over Voldemort's shoulders. It should have turned another invisible, but it did not render him unseen. The ring in his possession shifted to Voldemort's broken hand, drawn by a force unnatural that reminded Harry of the wind through the groves of ash on the Parnassus, before the temple of Apollo.</p><p>He moved between Voldemort and Griselda, raising his wand to protect.</p><p>"Death will not be mastered by one who defied her," Griselda said fiercely. "Death will not be mastered by a wizard when no blood-price has been paid for cutting down the elder."</p><p>"Mrs. Malfoy! Healers! Healers!" Percy was shouting. "Mrs. Malfoy!"</p><p>Voldemort screamed then, as one torn of soul. Evergreen splintered into fragments, bereaved and frightened and abandoned. Harry watched in grief as the wand of elder leapt into Voldemort's hands, death appeased by the sacrifice of what the defiant had held dear.</p><p>Yew's eternal lullaby sharded and withered, and in its wake rose dark and cold the brittle black venom of elder, marked by white grave-flowers, by <em>narcissus</em>.</p><p>"A man without a name cannot master Death," Griselda said, shaken, shattered.</p><p>"He is not a man without a name." Harry looked at the lines on his palm, and then cast his gaze to the skies, to the two at the heart of the constellation of Delphinus. "He wears the name I gave him."</p><p>Names gave the named power and meaning. And the Obscurus in Harry, powerful enough to level cities, had named his heart's choice the One, in instinctual knowing, in raw sentience.</p><p>Percy and his contingent were bearing down upon them.</p><p>Griselda raised her rowan again. "Avada-"</p><p>A black fire ringed them, of elder's make.</p><p>Resplendent alone on the southern skies, Saturn watched as Voldemort wept for Narcissa.</p><p>Griselda's screams were unearthly as she died in the flames.</p><p>Harry did not spare the dying woman a glance. He went to Voldemort, to kneel before him, and took his sightless, bleeding, wretched heart into his arms.</p><p>A woman walked through the ring of fire, unharmed.</p><p>Bellatrix wore the black of mourning. Her mien was sombre as she joined them. There was no war left even in her.</p><p>"Take him to Swanage," she told Harry.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <strong>November 2021</strong> </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Pale pink smeared November's dawn upon Old Harry Rocks and the whirlaway sea dancing on the coastline.</p><p>He put on a kettle of tea and waited in the kitchen, at the table where he had once exchanged quotes from the Conquest of Bread with Delphini. His wrist, he saw, was mottled by the marks of fingers, from where Narcissa's hand had dug in. Had she been frightened, though she had devised the make and manner of her death?</p><p>A hand crept into his once again, thin and dainty.</p><p>"He refused Dreamless Sleep," Delphini said, placing her head on his shoulder. "I regrew his ribs and mended the tendons and ligaments. He was barely lucid. I bathed him and dressed him, and sent him to bed. His magic-" her words broke off, in soft misery. "I miss his magic."</p><p>"His magic remains," Harry said gently, scooping the girl close. "It is marked by hers still, in the white of <em>narcissus</em> upon elder."</p><p>"I knew," she whispered, staring at the sunrise. "I knew what they were to each other. Was there no other way?"</p><p>As a child, the desperate beseeching in her voice was spun of naiveté and denial. Hadn't Rose asked Remus this question, again and again, desperate to understand if her father could have been spared? Snape had not asked that question; he knew, despite his heart's ruin, that Minerva had seen no other way.</p><p>"Will he recover, Harry?"</p><p>Mourning was spun of eternity's weave.</p><p>There was no recovery, Harry knew.</p><p>There was only this: sunrise and tea and a girl he held close.</p><p>In Glasgow, Hermione had returned to a home where she had lived with Ron for more than twenty tears. At Hogwarts, Snape was in Minerva's quarters where he had known peace and belonging since the last war's end. In Hogsmeade, Aberforth watched the beech and the oak, and mourned his clever, kind, guilt-wearied brother. In the Burrow, Molly and Arthur mourned their children, killed by ambition and sacrifice and familial fealty.</p><p>In a cottage in the Cotswolds, in a terraced home in Belfast, in a flat in Shoreditch, under this roof at Swanage, they mourned a woman who had led home a horse with no name.</p><p>"I must return to the Castle," Delphini said wearily, setting down her Lady Gaga mug in the sink. "The House Elves are dying in droves."</p><p>The logistics of production and distribution of the vaccination potions were at risk, thanks to the civil-war that had torn the countries, and destroyed potions laboratories and raw materials.</p><p>"Keep Snape occupied."</p><p>"Severus and Abe and Aurora," she said quietly. "Hundreds of refugees without home or means, their livelihood and roof burned down in the war, their health and magic destroyed in the pandemic. I will do my best, Harry."</p><p>As elm, she would be succor, shelter, and shade.</p><p>"Take care of Papa."</p><p>For her sake, Harry affected Captain Barbossa's accent.</p><p>"On it, poppet."</p><p>She laughed.</p><p>"You promised me tattoos."</p><p>"Tattoos there shall be," he vowed. "Off with you now."</p><p>------</p><p>"Hello," he said quietly, slipping into the bed beside Voldemort.</p><p>"Harry." Voldemort shifted to give him the skin-warmed side of the bed.</p><p>Harry inhaled the scent of soap and disinfectant, and pain-relieving potions, and the clean, crisp smell of flax and Voldemort's skin. Delphini had clad him in his winter's flannel pyjamas.</p><p>"Has she left?"</p><p>"Yes," Harry murmured, pulling up the blankets over them. "House Elves to sort out."</p><p>"We need to undo the dams Bella raised over the Avon. The Statute of Secrecy will be imperiled if the Muggles wake up to find their river drained overnight."</p><p>"Draco has the Ministry. It can be an excellent starter-task," Harry said mildly.</p><p>It would be tedious, knowing Bellatrix's penchant for the flagrantly dramatic. There was no way Harry was allowing Voldemort to be pulled into that cleanup.</p><p>"The wards on Hogsmeade-"</p><p>"Delphini has Snape and Aberforth and Lupin at her beck and call," Harry reminded Voldemort. "She can handle the wards."</p><p>At Swanage they were, and there they would remain, until they were summoned to the funerals.</p><p>"Harry, the Castle is tempestuous. Bella dammed the Avon without a care for the floodplain the city stands in. Draco will not be able to remedy this without assistance."</p><p>They did not need floods atop a pandemic, a coup, and a civil war. They did not need another instance of the Castle's whimsy bent on destruction. They did not need the diplomatic fracas sure to ensue if the Statute of Secrecy fell.</p><p>Harry sighed.</p><p>He knew why Voldemort sought to act. To act was to distract oneself. Hadn't Dumbledore done that, for more than a century, in a bid to stave off the guilt that came to prey on him unrelenting in moments of inaction?</p><p>"Let us have sex first," Voldemort offered.</p><p>Harry pressed his face to Voldemort's shoulder, torn between worry and grief and hilarity.</p><p>"You are worse than a trophy-wife who is trying to wheedle money from her sugar daddy to buy expensive gadgets and clothes and perfumes," he settled for saying.</p><p>"You should stop watching amateur pornography, Harry. I recommend reading William Turner's <em>History of Birds</em> to detoxify yourself."</p><p>Oh, two could play this game. Time to stir Voldemort's greatest weakness: curiosity. Harry sighed and said, "The situation, I am told, is sadly curable only by a firm hand."</p><p>Voldemort's face creased in a helpless, startled laugh.</p><p>"If you wish to be taken over the knee, I shan't deny you," he said easily, eyes sparkling with avid eagerness to understand Harry's wishes and whims, drunk on curiosity. "I claim no experience."</p><p>"Abraxas spoiled you, didn't he?" Harry teased. "He did not ask you to put your back into it. Instead, you lounged about, while other men toiled to leave you pleasured and pleased."</p><p>"Are you angling for an orgy?" Voldemort asked, moving to kiss Harry.</p><p>Mourning wreathed them, but there was joy too, and Harry gladly yielded to the mouth that took his.</p><p>"No orgies," Harry declared, when they parted. "The One comes with exclusive usage rights."</p><p>"You are making this up as you go, aren't you?" Voldemort remarked, entertained. "<em>Usage</em> rights?"</p><p>Harry had edited unrealistic gay erotica for two decades.</p><p>"Why don't you stick to the kitchen and the stock market? Leave the orchestration of our sex life to me?"</p><p>Dawn painted Voldemort in soft carmine, and Harry could not resist kissing him, ear to jaw to throat's apple.</p><p>Voldemort took his palm and kissed the core of it, a kiss placed upon the heart of the rune of <em>gebô</em>, of sacrifice's equilibrium in sacred union.</p><p>It was not Eden, as they found each other in a broken world, at another war's end. They were bereaved, and spent of will, and frightened for a girl in a castle. Harry knew that he had not begun to mourn, for Dumbledore, for Ron, for Minerva. He knew that Voldemort was striving his best to continue in denial of Narcissa's death.</p><p>This was no Eden, but this was their loneliness's end, in this house perched atop cliff's scarp, sheltered beneath an ash tree, surrounded by hawthorns on the trellises, hemmed in by flower-beds of delphinium.</p><p>"Take me with you," he asked.</p><p>He did not want to be left behind. He did not want to be parted. He meant to live before he died, even if he would have to teach himself to walk upon this new path that was not loneliness.</p><p>"I carry you," Voldemort confessed.</p><p>And Harry carried him too, as heart's final truth.</p><p>--------</p><p>Draco was waiting for them at Alexandra Park, atop a knoll marked by daffodils, by <em>narcissus</em>. He was bedraggled, and his eyes encircled by dark purple of exhaustion and red-rimmed by mourning.</p><p>Voldemort's stride faltered as he saw the daffodils Draco stood upon.</p><p>"I had not wanted this," he said, wounded by love's loss, wishing himself dead in her place.</p><p>"Mum chose you," Draco said quietly, bridging the distance between them, opening his arms. As in Dublin, as by Lucius's bedside, Voldemort wept in his embrace.</p><p>---------</p><p> </p><p>Harry and Draco flew up on broomsticks to survey the lands.</p><p>Bellatrix had dammed the river at Chippenham, with a freezing charm and a transfiguration of bridge to barrier.</p><p>"Dumbledore called her a dab hand at Charms," Harry reminisced.</p><p>"The freezing charm is giving away," Draco said, dismayed. "Harry, this will flood the valleys downstream!"</p><p>"NMP, Draco."</p><p>"NMP?"</p><p>"Not My Problem."</p><p>Minister and enlightened family man he might be, but Draco remained petty enough to shoot an itching charm at Harry.</p><p>They flew over the riverbed, making annotations on their maps, and finished their survey by noon.</p><p>They landed in the Royal Crescent of Bath.</p><p>"I was frightened," Draco said softly. "I knew she would not return. She had chosen him over a child of her womb. I feared, however, that he would die, that Aunt Bella would raise a river of blood in vengeance. I feared that you would die, and that Delphini would have no safe haven left, that I would be forced to linger in long grief."</p><p>Delphini had come to Hogwarts in the November of 2019.</p><p>Lucius had nearly died in the pandemic, and had lost his magic.</p><p>The manor, mausoleum and sanctuary it had been, had been razed to the ground, and only petrified trees remained in charred elegy to Abraxas and Narcissa and the foundling they had succored through three wars.</p><p>Narcissa was dead.</p><p>Delphini was wedded to a Castle.</p><p>Draco was Minister, of a country torn in two by the Tweed per his mother's accord that had brought peace in their time. War and coup and pandemic had destabilized the equilibrium of two decades. Reunification would cripple the economic prosperity they had enjoyed south of the Tweed thanks to Griselda's policies.</p><p>"I don't think I can do this, Harry," Draco said, exhausted.</p><p>The steel in Draco was Narcissa's. To the end, whatever the end may be, he would be sanctuary to those he held dear. <em>You, my balm, of then and now</em>, Voldemort had said to the woman who had brought him home from the rain, from the desert, from namelessness.</p><p>"I believe in you," Harry told Draco truthfully. "You are hers."</p><p>"Keeper of the flame of the ecumenical good," Draco reflected. "She would call me that, whenever I intervened to ameliorate Voldemort's clumsy attempts at parenting."</p><p>Delphini liked Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. She knew about ethnic food from all parts of the world. She had watched <em>Krull</em>, <em>Conan the Barbarian</em>, and <em>Pirates</em>. Draco was the reason why the children, Delphini and Scorpius, had known normality. Scorpius had come to Harry asking for autographs.</p><p>Draco had not raised their children in hate.</p><p>"The ecumenical good, was it?" Harry asked lightly. "Well then, you are qualified for the job. We need our Minister to practice the ecumenical good."</p><p>They walked to the terraced home Jane Austen had once lived in. Voldemort was speaking to her portrait.</p><p>"Harry, Draco, I was making my way to the river."</p><p>"And then was persuaded to stay by a clever woman," Draco noted.</p><p>"He is the one attempting persuasion," the woman in the portrait remarked. "I wish the painting to be destroyed."</p><p>Jane Austen had despised magic and Bath.</p><p>"Perhaps a relocation? Swanage is quiet." Voldemort looked to Harry. "If Harry is of the same mind, that is. Harry, what can we do for the portrait?"</p><p>The One, Harry had told Hermione and Ron many a time, would make decisions <em>with</em> him. The portrait was watching their interaction closely.</p><p>"The kitchen looks over the cliffs," Harry said brightly to the portrait. "Swanage is as Lyme Regis, from your novel."</p><p>"You are a persuasive man," the portrait replied. "I have long wished to study the anthropological aspects of a homoerotic household."</p><p>Draco hid a smile by ducking away.</p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>"She is quite creative with Charms," Voldemort noted, assessing Bellatrix's makeshift damming of the river. "It is a pity that she limits herself to Fiendfyre."</p><p>"You are not allowed to criticize her," Harry retorted. "She won a civil war, swore in a new government, and saved the damned country."</p><p>Voldemort eyed him thoughtfully.</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"You have changed."</p><p>"Have I now?" Harry asked wryly. The world had changed about him.</p><p>"You have come into your own."</p><p>He had named and claimed the One. They would know home together, at Swanage. Voldemort had ceded to Harry, when speaking to the portrait. There would be more of this, of decisions made together, of a life built together.</p><p>Having and holding suited Harry. And he had come into his own.</p><p>"Enough chatter. Fix the river and let us go home."</p><p>The river was a perilous undertaking, but elder moved assured, shifting element to element, curving away bank and lock to prevent flooding in the low-lying plains and vales of Avon.</p><p>Harry had seen Dumbledore wield that wand. It had been a battle of wills between wand and wizard, and the wizard had won each time because of the sentient magic of the Castle that bolstered him.</p><p>In Voldemort's hand, appeased by sacrifice, death's elder carried out the wizard's will seamlessly.</p><p>By the banks of the Avon, white daffodils bloomed.</p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>"We are here to commemorate the men and women who bravely gave their lives to defend Hogwarts and our country," Delphini said.</p><p>They were on the High Street of Hogsmeade.</p><p>"Together, now!" she shouted.</p><p>They cast the spells of entombment together, and marble grave markers were placed above where the fallen defenders had been slain.</p><p>Harry walked to where Hermione was standing. It was not Ron's marker.</p><p>"Fleur's," she said. "She died fighting for us."</p><p>Her husband had died on Azkaban, fighting for Percy.</p><p>-------</p><p> </p><p>They buried Minerva by the Lake.</p><p>After the mourners had left, it was only Delphini and Harry and Snape left by the white tomb.</p><p>Snape was in the robes he favored for travel and duelling.</p><p>"You are leaving," Delphini said sadly.</p><p>"Where will you go?" Harry demanded, shaken. Snape was his constant, their constant.</p><p>What was a church without its steeple? What was a Harry without Snape? Snape was protection, succor, <em>family</em>.</p><p>"I have not decided," Snape said quietly.</p><p>The uncertainty in Snape's voice Harry had not once heard before, in their interactions over three decades.</p><p>"Here." Snape cast a spell of summoning with his wand of hawthorn, and to him came a carefully wrapped parcel. He handed it to Delphini. "Keep this safe for me, until I return."</p><p>It was a gramophone. Minerva's gramophone.</p><p>"Abraxas Malfoy gifted this to Voldemort in the 1940s. He gave it to Minerva when she visited him on his deathbed, after Godric's Hollow."</p><p>"I shall gift you a stash of Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande Vinyl, when you return," Delphini promised.</p><p>"And Lady Gaga," Snape reminded her. "We cannot have anarchist pop music without her."</p><p>"And Lady Gaga," Delphini whispered, tearful. "Severus, I cannot do this without you."</p><p>"Use him." Snape nodded to Harry. "He is unemployed and his sole engagement is to eat your father out of home and hearth." Harry made to speak, but Snape went on. "And to fuck him witless. You will be doing your father a service by keeping Potter on as your odd-job man."</p><p>"If Papa wants to retain Harry for his <em>services</em>, I shan't stand in his way," Delphini replied, giggling, giving Harry a look of utter mirth. "Come back, Severus. I will be waiting for you."</p><p>She hugged him, bright-eyed in sorrow and sympathy and love.</p><p>Harry was next in line.</p><p>"Sentimentalism, Potter?"</p><p>"You know how to find me if you need saving, Snape."</p><p>Harry had never once saved Snape, but they had had two weeks of folly that had strengthened them both and left them better men. Perhaps that counted.</p><p>It counted, Harry realized, as Snape held him for an instant longer when Harry made to break their embrace.</p><p>"Come back," Harry demanded.</p><p>Delphini was by Harry's side as he watched Snape's form vanish beyond the gates of Hogwarts.</p><p>"Perhaps I shouldn't have come to Hogwarts in 2019," she said mournfully.</p><p>It was not her fault that she was fate to them.</p><p>"Harry! Look!" she exclaimed then, pointing at a sapling that grew fierce by the tombstone.</p><p>Hawthorn.</p><p>One day, when Snape returned, hawthorn would bloom over Minerva's grave.</p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>Andromeda was waiting for them in the Great Hall.</p><p>"Delphini," she greeted her niece. "May I attend Narcissa's funeral?"</p><p>"Draco and Mum-"</p><p>Harry placed a bracing hand at Delphini's shoulder. Bellatrix had said that her daughter had come into her own.</p><p>"Please join us," Delphini amended.</p><p>------</p><p> </p><p>That evening, Harry helped her set a vinyl record on the gramophone. The first record they had found in Dumbledore's cupboards was <em>The Clovers</em></p><p><em>Love Potion No. 9 </em>began playing.</p><p>"Papa's song," Delphini said fondly.</p><p>"Abraxas's song," Harry corrected her.</p><p>He took her hand and led her into an easy jig about the room, as the Headmasters watched them, as Dumbledore began tap-dancing in his portrait.</p><p>
  <em>"I took my troubles down to Madame Rue</em><br/>
<em>You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth</em><br/>
<em>She's got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine</em><br/>
<em>Selling little bottles of Love Potion Number Nine!"</em>
</p><p>"I was born of a potion!" Delphini said, laughing, as Harry twirled her about.</p><p>Once of potion, once of two brother wands broken willingly, this Castle's bride who wielded elm.</p><p>
  <em>"She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign</em><br/>
<em>She said "What you need is Love Potion Number Nine"</em>
</p><p>Delphini examined his hand, affecting airs as Trelawney. She peered at the lines of the fate her coming had inscribed onto his skin, and declared, "I prophesy that you shall raise sheep and ducks."</p><p>"That is the kindest prophecy a soothsayer has given me," Harry assured her.</p><p>Laughing, grieving, they danced to <em>Love Potion No. 9 </em>, played on the gramophone that had been Minerva's, given to her by a dying man who had once been Voldemort's sanctuary.</p><p> </p><p>---------</p><p> </p><p>Voldemort was fussing about with boutonnières of delphinium and poppy and narcissus.</p><p>Delphinium had been Narcissa's favorite flowers. Narcissus, for the grave-flowers Cygnus had named his unwanted daughter after.</p><p>"Poppies?" Harry asked softly.</p><p>"For Druella," Voldemort murmured, stooped by grief.</p><p>Harry looped his arms about him, and pressed his lips to the nape of Voldemort's neck.</p><p>"Narcissa's mother."</p><p>"I-" Voldemort shifted about in Harry's arms, so that they faced each other.</p><p>"And here I thought you as gay as a flamingo in Vegas," Harry said lightly, hiding his pity at the horror and mourning etched unexpressed in Voldemort's features.</p><p>"It wasn't-" Voldemort broke off, running his hands distractedly up and down Harry's arms. "She was kind to me. A quiet girl. She had a green thumb. I was a disaster with plants."</p><p>Not at Swanage.</p><p>"You keep your garden in her memory," Harry said, and wondered what secrets Voldemort still held close. He wished every secret unburied and yielded to him. He would hold them safe, as he held Voldemort safe.</p><p>"I keep my garden for you," Voldemort muttered, looking away. "Narcissa told me about a child toiling in a garden of lilies and petunias, starving and thin and abandoned, in midsummer's sun. I-"</p><p>Voldemort had succored Narcissa because Cygnus had been starving her. Narcissa had come to Privet Drive, and had seen a boy starving and alone, kneeling in the flower-beds. Wearied and sorrowed and ridden by love's remorselessness, Voldemort was easy to read. He wished that the consequences of his love for Abraxas had not harmed Harry. He would do the same, all over again, if he was returned to that time. <em>A harmony holier than marriage</em>, Narcissa had said of their love.</p><p>A garden for Harry.</p><p>When Harry splayed his hand upon Voldemort's breast, the heart beneath his fingers fluttered in grateful surrender.</p><p>Harry pinned a boutonnière to the lapel of Voldemort's robes.</p><p>Delphinium for the girl whose coming had inscribed their fate in Job's Coffin.</p><p>Poppies for Druella Rosier, who had died alone in a home of the blues.</p><p>White daffodils for the woman who had brought home, from the desert, from the rain, a horse with no name.</p><p>-------</p><p> </p><p>"Cissy was Papa's darling," Lucius said.</p><p>He had regained his health after contracting the virus, but without magic, age had seized him, decaying his life-span.</p><p>"Voldemort brought her home, one winter's night in 1965. Papa had to pay off yellow journalists who hovered about the gates, sensing scandal. Cissy grew up there, quiet and quick-witted. Papa doted upon her, for Bella and I were wild things partying in the cities of Europe, and rarely home. Papa's was a heart of gold. Cissy was his heir. She had his heart."</p><p>Lucius looked up from the scroll he had prepared.</p><p>"Cissy held our family together, through war and peace."</p><p>It was a small gathering, in Swanage, beneath their ash tree.</p><p>Delphini stood beside Scorpius. Draco stood with Wallis, Lucius's wife. Andromeda had come alone. Bellatrix was in her husband's arms, face veiled by mourning's black lace.</p><p>There had been heated discussion among Lucius and Draco and Bellatrix, on the burial site. The manor and its grounds were razed and cursed, and it would be the work of years to remedy the state of it. Lucius wanted her buried in the parish church graveyard in London, beside the old Black home, alongside her ancestors. Draco wanted to bury her in the little plot of land he had bought in Ramsgate. Bellatrix wanted to bury her on the premises of the Cotswolds cottage. Voldemort had been hesitant to speak, but Harry had spoken for him.</p><p>Narcissa would be buried at Swanage, they had decided.</p><p>"She wrote to me everyday, when I was in Azkaban," Bellatrix spoke. "She was a child, starved and abandoned, and I learned the Dark Arts to save her from our father. Our mother was dying. Our sister had left us."</p><p>She paused, collecting her composure. Andromeda's face was cracked in grief.</p><p>"Narcissa caught Voldemort's attention at our mother's funeral. It was the best thing that could have happened to her, I thought then. It was the worst thing that could have happened to her, I decided, decades later, when I saw her on the entablature of the Royal Crescent, ethereal in the full moon, serene as she chose her end."</p><p>Harry placed his fingers lightly on Voldemort's hand, knowing how Voldemort blamed himself for this.</p><p>"I have come to accept that he was the best thing that happened to her," Bellatrix continued quietly. "She had been Saturn's child, alone and lonely. He took her home, to his sanctuary, and she came to know belonging. <em>Storge</em>, she taught us, was the love of a man for his family. <em>Storge</em> was her weapon as she won us the peace in our time, two decades ago, and now."</p><p>"I did not expect to outlive her," Bellatrix finished. "I celebrate her, because she chose her end, for the cause that was dearest to her, for <em>storge</em>."</p><p>Aberforth had refused to mourn his brother, saying that Dumbledore had died for a cause dear to him, on terms of his choosing, in peace.</p><p>"Mum tried to send me away, during the war," Draco began. "I refused. For her sake, Voldemort came to seek my friendship. We-" he swallowed. "I brought home an orphaned babe in the middle of the war. I knew I would not marry. I knew I would not have a child as others did. Mum blamed herself, and said it must be my inheritance from her <em>brokenness</em>. I was at wit's end, as the world ended in war about us, and I did not know if I could raise a child. Voldemort asked me to name the babe. It was the first day of the month of Scorpio. <em>In 1965, I came to Abraxas with a child</em>, he told me. He had never named what she was to her."</p><p>Delphini had said that her father had never called her <em>his</em> child.</p><p>"She had never named what he was to her, but she would often say, <em>The man who fathered me was not my father</em>."</p><p>Under Harry's clasp, Voldemort's hand was trembling.</p><p>"She died for the ecumenical good, and this country owes a debt to her, for two wars ended. Patriotism was not her driving motivation. She died for her heart's cause."</p><p>They looked to Voldemort. He shook his head, too fraught to speak.</p><p>Bellatrix lifted her veil and cast a spell of red. Harry swore and pushed Voldemort away from the spell's arc. Smoke rose from the scorched grass at their feet.</p><p>"Mum!"</p><p>"Go on," Bellatrix ordered Voldemort, wand raised.</p><p>Harry suppressed a grin as Voldemort was harried from speechless grief to resigned exasperation.</p><p>"Artemis," Voldemort said softly, eyes on the bier. "<em>This lone huntress, Artemis, who hath yoked the brood of savage lions.</em> Once, I fancied myself her savior, who had brought her home, away from neglect and cruelty."</p><p>She had been his savior. She had brought him home.</p><p>"She knew me," he said. "In weakness, in failure, in folly, in madness, in pain, to her I turned. She was my heart's balm."</p><p>Hers the hawthorn that had healed.</p><p>They buried her beneath the ash tree.</p><p>------</p><p>That night, Harry woke to find himself alone.</p><p>He threw on a flannel housecoat and ran out, holding aloft a lantern. Voldemort was seated beneath the ash tree, head in his hands, quietly singing to himself <em>A horse with no name</em>, intermittently breaking into bitter weeping.</p><p>Grief was a private affair.</p><p>Harry returned to bed and lay awake until sunrise.</p><p>------</p><p>"All right?" he asked in the morning, seeing Voldemort in an armchair huddled, with a woolen blanket cosy about his shoulders.</p><p>Voldemort looked up from his iPad, and the quiet plea in his gaze Harry could not refuse.</p><p>"Tell me about NFTs?" he asked instead. "How can Delphini pay the school's taxes and convince the Board that they are not bankrupt?"</p><p>Voldemort launched into a monologue about Cryptokitties and Flow and metadata about hash functions.</p><p>Harry nodded along and went to put on tea. The Austen portrait began chatting with him about the narcissism he had to name rocks after him.</p><p>"I did not name them," he defended himself.</p><p>"I don't believe you," the portrait said, sassy and argumentative. "They are phallic monstrosities. You must have raised them from the sea to court him."</p><p>"My cock does not resemble Old Harry Rocks."</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>December 2021</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Rose moved out," Hermione said. "She started at the Portree Apiary as an apprentice last week. Nine to five. Decent pay. She likes the job, she says."</p><p>Hermione was slumped beside Harry on the tatty sofa Ron had bought for life, with its stains of unknown origin. He held her loosely as they watched NASA's <em>Perseverance</em> video footage from Mars.</p><p>"Madam Hooch resigned," she went on. "Hugo applied for the job. Delphini sent him his offer letter yesterday."</p><p>Hugo would do well at Hogwarts, Harry mused.</p><p>Delphini needed friends. Without Snape and Minerva, she was struggling to steer the ship. The children would return in January, for an accelerated school year.</p><p>While there were significant logistical and staffing difficulties, Draco and Delphini were committed to reopening the school after Christmas. They had distributed the vaccine potions among the House Elves. They had begun sorting out arrangements to obtain dosages suitable for adolescents so that the children could be inoculated at arrival.</p><p>"I am thinking of moving back with Mum and Dad," Hermione said softly. Her mum did not have many days left, the doctors had opined.</p><p>Snape had left Hogwarts. Hermione meant to leave her home of two decades. Harry had listed his flat to sell.</p><p>"You could stay with me. Swanage is quiet," he said. "Our guest-room overlooks the cliffs and the sea. We have a troubled portrait of Jane Austen who takes undue interest in anthropological studies."</p><p>"How did you come by Jane Austen's portrait?"</p><p>"The portrait was our prison guard at Bath. She despised Bath as much as we did, it turned out."</p><p>Hermione turned to look up at him, baffled and amused.</p><p>"Think about it," he urged her.</p><p>"All right. I promise to think about it," she said, and nodded to the tablet. "Let us watch the <em>Perseverance</em> footage again."</p><p>They found comfort in beholding man's ingenuity that had taken him to other earths.</p><p>---------</p><p> </p><p>"I wonder where Severus is," Delphini mused, as they settled in the fluffy wingbacks of the Headmaster's office with Guinness and crisps.</p><p>The flatscreen Dumbledore had set up had been the top of the line in 2019. It was playing <em>Pirates of the Caribbean</em>.</p><p>Dumbledore's portrait had been insistently demanding that Delphini replace the television, claiming that it must be outrageously outdated by now.</p><p>"Severus must have gone to Transylvania," Dumbledore's portrait said cheerily. "To meet Dracula, you see."</p><p>Delphini groaned and shook her beer bottle at the portrait in warning.</p><p>"It could be worse," Harry consoled her. "It could be Jane Austen."</p><p>She shuddered. "The last time I came by for tea, she asked me how lesbians get it on," she complained. "Papa convinced her that I was not a...womanizer, despite the evidence she presented to prove that I was attracted to her."</p><p>"You were nice to her," Harry said wryly. The portrait interpreted politeness as flirtation. "She has not accused your mother of interest."</p><p>"Mum wears corsets!" Delphini said, flapping her hands in agitation, splashing beer all over Dumbledore's armchairs. "Mum gives lesbian vibes like nobody's business!"</p><p>"Mrs. Lestrange would make an excellent judge on RuPaul's show," Dumbledore's portrait opined.</p><p>"Please. Let us at least keep the Americans safe from her," Delphini muttered.</p><p>On the screen, Elizabeth Swann asked her pirates to Hoist the Colors. Barbossa stood beside her.</p><p>"Well, poppet?" Harry asked his treasure.</p><p>"Dumbledore says he would have made a better Tia Dalma than Naomie Harris."</p><p>"Take my side, Harry!" Dumbledore's portrait demanded.</p><p>Davy Jones had left his heart in a locker to Tia Dalma. Dumbledore had buried his heart alive in a coffin of stone.</p><p>--------</p><p>Draco was at Swanage again. He spent many nights at Swanage, tired of the city, and tired of rattling about alone in his Shoreditch flat.</p><p>Scorpius had gone to Belfast to his grandfather, and meant to return after the New Year.</p><p>Draco was arguing with Jane Austen's portrait.</p><p>"Harry! There you are!" Draco gesticulated wildly, as one disturbed beyond the pale of reason. "Tell her that I am not here for an orgy."</p><p>"Draco is not here for an orgy," Harry parroted dutifully.</p><p>"Good," she judged. "Pick them younger, Harry."</p><p>Draco spluttered.</p><p>"I blame Voldemort," Harry said. "He humors her when he is cooking."</p><p>"He spends half his day in the kitchen. I cannot imagine he would have a moment's peace if he doesn't humor her," Draco pointed out. "I can find an out of the way corridor in the Ministry, if you wished."</p><p>"She enjoys the view of my phallic rocks. Don't you, Jane?"</p><p>"Mighty is this man's prowess," she replied charmingly.</p><p>Draco groaned and sat down to pick at the cold supper Voldemort had set out for them.</p><p>"Is he trading?"</p><p>"Something about Hogwarts, NFTs, and ensuring that the school can pay its taxes from 1944," Draco said, distracted, swiping through what must be a million notifications on his phone.</p><p>"How is your hiring going?" Harry went to the larder to fetch them glasses of chocolate milk.</p><p>"Why can't you work for the Ministry?" Draco complained. "Magical Law Enforcement? Unspeakables? <em>Minister of Magic</em>? You can have your pick."</p><p>"I am a retired man."</p><p>"You have never worked a day in your life!"</p><p>"Saving the world counts."</p><p>"Does it now?" Draco muttered. "I doubt you get a pension for your service."</p><p>"I don't need a pension. I picked a man gone berserk on the stock exchanges."</p><p>"Berserker!" Austen's portrait chirped up. "Go berserk and raw him wild, Harry!"</p><p>Draco stared at the portrait, horrified.</p><p>"She has been listening in on my Dungeons and Daddies podcast," Harry explained. "Nothing scandalous here."</p><p>"Severus called me. His passport does not have a vaccination stamp and they caught him in Transylvania," Draco gossiped.</p><p>"So he did go to Transylvania, after all!" Harry exclaimed.</p><p>Dumbledore's portrait had been bang on the money again. Perhaps Harry should convince the portrait to help him with the lottery.</p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>Bellatrix showed up at Swanage on Fridays. She would walk to the ash tree, first, and place fresh flowers upon her sister's grave. Then she would come to the house.</p><p>"Please don't," Voldemort urged.</p><p>"Please do," Austen's portrait implored.</p><p>Bellatrix winked at Harry and flashed her tits at the portrait.</p><p>Voldemort returned to kneading the dough for bread, shaking his head.</p><p>"You have a remarkably perky bosom for one of your age," the portrait commented.</p><p>A beam of red bounced off the portrait and hit a vase, and bounced off the vase to the table, and bounced off the table to Harry's phone, which exploded.</p><p>"You warded the flower vases and did not ward the phone?" Bellatrix asked, incredulous.</p><p>"He likes the vases," Harry pointed out. "I can buy a new phone. It is good for my Apple stock, I am told."</p><p>Voldemort set the dough to ferment and moved to wash his hands.</p><p>"Can you press winter's flowers for me?" Bellatrix asked quietly.</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>"Her flowers?"</p><p>"Her flowers," she concurred.</p><p>Harry made Bellatrix tea as Voldemort went to pluck and press mid-winter's flowers.</p><p>"None of your froofy grass teas," she warned him, eyeing the boxes of herbal teas stashed in their tea cupboard.</p><p>"Those are Delphini's," Harry commented. "Draco hooked her onto them. They say it is good for working class heroes. Relieves stress, increases energy, brings the mind to focus, brings the chakras into alignment."</p><p>The castle did not like coffee. Delphini was on the lookout for a new source of caffeine to get through her days. Harry wondered how long the herbal tea phase would last. He would have to get her an Amazon subscription for caffeine pills.</p><p>"The Cruciatus brings the chakras into alignment."</p><p>"Far be it from me to gainsay our esteemed local Cruciatus witchdoctor," Harry replied.</p><p>"Delphini says you like me, secretly," Bellatrix said, preening.</p><p>"For a woman your age, you have fine tits."</p><p>This time, his iPad exploded.</p><p>If she trashed the kitchen before the weekend, Voldemort would be furious with Harry. Voldemort liked to indulge in extravagant culinary adventures on Saturdays and Sundays, when the markets were closed.</p><p>For the sake of domestic harmony, he told Bellatrix, "I hate your guts, but you are the best duelist I have seen."</p><p>She cast him a skeptical glance. Then, sensing his sincerity, she reciprocated.</p><p>"You are good for her." She sighed, and stared at Delphini's Snorlax cup that Harry had served her tea in. "You are good for him."</p><p>--------</p><p>They were woken up at three in the morning by sirens going off from the fireplace.</p><p>"The wards on the Floo," Voldemort said, scrambling from bed, rushing to the living room.</p><p>Harry followed sedately, assured in the knowledge that nobody would <em>dare</em> invade.</p><p>It was Draco.</p><p>"I reactivated the Floo network! And I was testing the nuclear codes!"</p><p>"We don't have nuclear weapons," Voldemort said, frazzled, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Draco, I have wards on the Floo for a reason."</p><p>"I meant the Minister's override codes to take down the hacky wards noncompliant citizens may place on their Floos."</p><p>Voldemort shut down the Floo.</p><p>"Harry!"</p><p>"In the kitchen," Harry called out. He had poured them glasses of chocolate milk. It would help them return to sleep.</p><p>Voldemort trudged in, grumpy and barely awake. Austen's portrait wolf-whistled.</p><p>"You did not wait to put your clothes on," Harry said, amused, as Voldemort blinked at the portrait in befuddlement.</p><p>"If only you didn't insist that we sleep in the nude," Voldemort replied, unruffled, coming to snatch a glass of chocolate milk.</p><p>The appreciative glance the portrait sent bore familiarity.</p><p>"You have done this before!" Harry exclaimed, scandalized.</p><p>"She insists that I entertain her on occasion. She sings <em>The Rime of the Ancient Mariner</em> in a loop unless I comply."</p><p>"How have you been entertaining her?" Harry demanded, fury and mirth battling in him at what his life had become.</p><p>"Onanism," the portrait explained. "He assists me in my anthropological studies, Harry."</p><p><em>Onanism</em>.</p><p>"You are tossing off to a portrait?" Harry said weakly, sitting down by the bay window.</p><p>"He prays to your mighty phallus in filthy words," the portrait added, in a mood to be helpful.</p><p>"Liar. I doubt that," Harry said skeptically. Voldemort's attraction, inexplicable though it be, was to Harry's damned mind.</p><p>"You know well that I am inept at sexual pursuits, solitary or otherwise," Voldemort reminded him.</p><p>Chagrined, the portrait said meekly, "He lets me watch him dress for the day, on occasion. It is <em>anthropological</em>!"</p><p>"You aren't inept," Harry said, when they retired to bed again, at dawn. "You aren't inept at sex."</p><p>Voldemort sighed and turned to face him. Harry cupped his cheek, and smiled fondly when Voldemort shifted to kiss the heart of his palm.</p><p>"You have not initiated frequent sexual intercourse."</p><p>Harry was content. They wound up having sex once or twice a week. The sporadic frequency would have sounded horrific to him once.</p><p>All he knew was contentment. There was a strange freedom in this, in knowing that he did not need to cram life into the present, that there would be tomorrows.</p><p>Harry enjoyed seducing Voldemort to sex, slowly, through the course of a day, layering wit and banter until he had lured his prey to unfolding. The joy, he had come to find, was in the chase too.</p><p>He liked to take his time, these days. And he had the time to take.</p><p>"Let me see to our sex life," he told Voldemort. "You are the bank and the kitchen."</p><p>"And the flowers," Voldemort reminded him.</p><p>"And the flowers," Harry acquiesced heartily.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <em> <strong>January 2022</strong> </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They stayed up to watch the Minister's New Year speech at midnight.</p><p>Harry was on the sofa, legs spread wide in utter fecklessness. <em>Manspreading</em>. Where was a man to manspread in peace if not under his own roof? Voldemort, cocooned in his tatty blanket of wool was at the other end of the sofa, huddled up and half-asleep. Delphini was sprawled on her belly on the carpet, sipping at herbal tea she had laced with rum. Hogwarts, she claimed, liked rum.</p><p>"The pandemic is over," Draco announced, as hundreds cheered in the Ministry atrium. As one, the Bubblehead charms popped away. "We have vaccinated our population. Our schools are fully operational. We have reopened our borders. We anticipate a return to normality for international travel by the end of spring."</p><p>"We shall mark February 1st as our National Pandemic Awareness Day, to remember the health care workers who toiled and died on the frontlines, to remember the victims of the pandemic, to remember the economic struggles and social deprivations imposed on our community. We need to remember that the mental health toll has only begun, and will continue to affect us in the years to come."</p><p>"We acknowledge the valuable contributions that the Crossborder Roundtable for Undesirable Pandemics made to staunch the wave of the virus through our communities."</p><p>Delphini scrambled up, eyes wide in shock. Harry tugged her up to the sofa, to sit between them.</p><p>"We award the following with the Order of Merlin, First Class, for their contributions to the triaging and management of the pandemic. Healer Susan Bones, Head of the Glasgow Magical Malady Center. Healer Delphini Lestrange, who served as the Head of St. Mungo's, during the apex of the pandemic. Harry Potter, the formal liaison from the Northern Territories. Nathaniel Rosier, the formal liaison from the South."</p><p>Delphini burst into sobs on hearing Nat's name. Voldemort startled, and cast an alarmed glance at Harry, but before Harry could move, Voldemort's hand had come about the girl's shoulders, in instinct, and she collapsed against him, letting him speak softly to her to soothe. Harry suppressed a fond grin. Beholding Voldemort's instinctive parenting made Harry want to fuck him silly.</p><p>The kinks Harry had developed turned out to be odder than any Ron and Hermione had written of in their erotica.</p><p>"We award the following for their contributions to the cure. Voldemort, for the creative solution based on the Cruciatus Curse. Healer Periwinkle Greengrass, who designed a potion based on the innovative spell Voldemort crafted. Potions Master Severus Snape, who extended the cure to Magical Creatures and Beings not classified as Wizards."</p><p>Delphini had texted Periwinkle, a few days ago. She wanted closure. She had not received a reply. </p><p>"As we fought a pandemic, we fought to defend our freedom too. For the valorous defense and unification of our country, the Ministry proffers upon Bellatrix Lestrange the Order of Hannibal, First class."</p><p>Hannibal suited her. She would have imported war elephants into Britain if she could get away with it.</p><p>"Let us remember, at new year's verge, the forty-seven that died defending Hogsmeade and the Castle of Hogwarts. We name the forty-seven the Keepers of the Flame of the Ecumenical Good."</p><p>Ron. Minerva. Fleur. So many Harry had led into battle. </p><p>Draco's features were slivered by sharp emotion, but he composed himself masterfully.</p><p>Narcissa would not have an award of recognition accorded to her. A woman who had ended two wars, and given them peace in their time, and no acclaim would be hers.</p><p>"It is not fair," Delphini whispered.</p><p>"Have a Chocolate Frog," Voldemort murmured, summoning one for her.</p><p>Harry glanced at him askance. Even by Voldemort's clumsy standards, that was rather odd.</p><p>Draco was blathering on about unity and progressive values.</p><p>Delphini sighed grumpily and peeled upon the wrapping.</p><p>"Read the card to us, won't you?"</p><p>"Papa!"</p><p>"Go ahead."</p><p> </p><p>NARCISSA BLACK MALFOY</p><p>ARCHITECT OF PEACE</p><p>Considered by many the greatest witch of modern times, Narcissa is famous for ending the Second Wizarding War in 1995, and for ending the Third Wizarding War in 2021.</p><p>Narcissa enjoyed country rock music and Jane Austen.</p><p>She had an affinity for hawthorn trees and a horse with no name.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Happy New Year, Papa." Delphini hugged him.</p><p>"Harry New Year," he wished her, and took her gloved hands in his. Holding her gaze, he removed the gloves from her hands and vanished them. </p><p>"Papa-"</p><p>He bent to kiss the scars on the backs of her hands, those words of hate. </p><p>"My child," he said softly. "My dearest."</p><p>She hugged him again, sobbing. He held her gently, as one holds a flower. Harry switched off the television and watched them tenderly. When Voldemort's hand came to him, open in offering, Harry clasped it in his own. </p><p>Delphini sighed and rubbed her face dry, and then moved to hug Harry.</p><p>"Happy New Year, Harry. I am off to bed."</p><p>"No, no, first we must go out and make a wish by the seashore."</p><p>Traditions, Harry had read in an e-book, defined families. Begin as you mean to carry on. The new year was a good time to start a tradition, wasn't it?</p><p>"It will be freezing outside, Harry!"</p><p>"Your father has a magic wand."</p><p>"Stop with the Dad jokes!"</p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>The skies above Swanage were clear. Across the moon, a hunting owl swooped. Old Harry Rocks stood watch over the receding tide.</p><p>"Make a wish," Harry told them.</p><p>Voldemort humored him, looking up at the stars, at the two in the heart of the constellation of Delphinus, and whispered his wish.</p><p>Delphini, disgruntled about having to venture out in the cold, scowled at Harry, but muttered a wish under her breath. Harry caught the gist. <em>No more pandemics</em>. She must not be the only one wishing so on this New Year's night.</p><p>"Have you made yours?" she demanded. </p><p>He had wished that the meteorite stone that had fallen from the skies would be found again, and returned to her.</p><p>"What <em>could</em> I wish for?" he teased her. "I have the One. I have you. Perhaps a properly piratical tattoo?"</p><p>"Harry! You are as bad as Mum!"</p><p>Laughing, he let her chase him home.</p><p>---------</p><p> </p><p>Harry lay in bed alone, watching the stars of Job's coffin. He could hear faintly the sounds of Voldemort's return, the front door opening and closing, the clattering about as outer clothes were discarded on the coat pegs. Harry suspected he must have made a detour to the ash tree, to Narcissa's grave.</p><p>Delphini was playing David Bowie's <em>Blackstar</em> in her room.</p><p><em>In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen</em><br/>
<em>Stands a solitary candle, </em><br/>
<em>In the centre of it all, in the centre of it all</em><br/>
<em>Your eyes</em> </p><p>Voldemort entered their bedroom and shut the door.</p><p>"I wish I had seen her," he murmured. He had been deprived of sight, on All Hallows's Eve. He had known her death on his magic.</p><p>"She would have said that magic is the truest of senses," Harry reminisced, remembering his arguments with her fondly, as they plotted and prayed in that grim cell with a cage of ash, hawthorn, and holly, as they schemed to bring home safe a man they loved.</p><p>"You are right."</p><p>"Come to bed, beloved."</p><p>Voldemort inhaled in surprise. Harry did not say a word more. He knew the value of silence, and of letting it steep.</p><p>Sure enough, Voldemort crept into bed beside him, and remembered to strip off when it was frequently Harry's task to remind him of why clothes were disallowed in their bed.</p><p>"Good, very good," Harry praised.</p><p>"I am not your dog."</p><p>"You know-"</p><p>"We are not roleplaying tonight," Voldemort said, laughing. "Let her go back to Hogwarts. I know how you get carried away."</p><p>Light of heart, Harry rolled atop Voldemort, and pressed him into the bed, grabbing his arms and splaying him akimbo.</p><p>"Are you averse to this?"</p><p>"I am in your hands," Voldemort said, tilting his head to kiss Harry.</p><p>"And in my hands, I hold you as mine," Harry vowed.</p><p>"Happy New Year, Harry."</p><p>"Happy New Year."</p><p>Voldemort kissed him sweetly in old promises made anew. The shadowed places in Harry's heart that had known only loneliness gleamed bright as he held in his hands what he had longed for, through four decades of keening want and wish.</p><p>"I wish you would not stare at me so."</p><p>"Oh, but I must!" Harry vowed. "Wild and brave thing, heart of me."</p><p>A horse with no name, come home from the rain, to Harry, at their loneliness's end.</p><p>"Wild?" Voldemort asked tenderly. "And here I thought that to name was to possess."</p><p>"I named you," Harry agreed, laughing, kissing, holding, having, drunk on togetherness, skin to skin in earnest songs of belonging.</p><p>"What did you name me?"</p><p>"The One."</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for trusting me to sail us home.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>Where can we find details of a subplot? </b> Pandemic AU spans <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137872">multiple stories</a>. They are interwoven and are written to bring out nuances and layers in each other. </p><p><b>How did you select the music?</b> <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29586945">Pandemic, The Playlist: Leitmotifs, Themes, and Songs </a></p><p><b>Where are the older stories? Catullus/Almagest/Unvollendete etc.</b> <a href="https://eldritcher-hp-fics.dreamwidth.org">Dreamwidth</a>. I understand it is not a reader-preferred platform, but due to past exposure to the dark side of fandom, this was necessary. Please don't distribute the stories elsewhere. </p><p><b> Misc writing notes </b><br/>Inspired heavily by Monty Python, Lucan's Pharsalia, poetry by Shelley, various films and songs and books I am lazy to list and collate.<br/>Over the pandemic, I have been trying to cling to my way of looking at things, that meaning is neither given nor made in absolute, that broken worlds are still beautiful and that in times of tragedy, a touch of the surreal adds a splash of hope’s colours. </p><p>My motivation was drawn from the sheer number of front-line workers I associated closely with who have been going through hell in the pandemic, the said and unsaid consequences on mental health I have been seeing in my closest circles (and in my own state). I have been well, though I admit I have picked up peculiar hobbies of disrepute.<br/><br/>The story is written in a matryoshka structure, weaving the supporting tales. It was written and posted as-is, without editing, on the fly.  </p><p>The finale is written in the three-act structure. I have had the occasional question as to why the finale was not broken into smaller chapters. It was a deliberate decision so that I may be able to bring readers the three acts in a single installment.</p><p>* On modernisation: In another part of life, I publish science-fiction. When dipping my toes on occasion in fan-fiction, I go the other way and stay in high-fantasy/low-fantasy. For Pandemic, I made the decision to set it in 2020 instead of inventing a fake pandemic in the 1990s. Laziness and bitcoin make a compelling case.<br/>* On the glaring lack of porn: It didn't suit the characterisations we had to write sex as a major element in the story.<br/>* On the sketchy summary, sketchy tags etc: I came from a place of reducing spoilers.<br/>* On the first person narration:  I kept the main story accessible in the third person narration  My primary strength in writing is first person narration, so I used that for all the others.<br/>* On the mixups between American and British English: A perpetual battle between Autocorrect and eldritcher.<br/>* On the possibility of an epilogue: Perhaps in a few months, if the stars align. </p><p>* The finale opens and closes with a David Bowie song, showing the mirroring of Dumbledore and Delphini as the Headmasters.<br/>* A decision to veil the fallout of the civil war was made since the last chapter had choppy waters, and I didn't want to leave a rough aftertaste.<br/>* The Chocolate Frog story begins with Voldemort and Narcissa in <i>A horse with no name.</i> As a child, she promises him that she will commission a card about him. Instead, she is the one who gets a card posthumously, commissioned by him.<br/><br/>* To those who asked me who my favourite character to write in Pandemic was. I have to go with Minerva!<br/>* My favourite story in the series: <i>A horse with no name</i>. This story has been ten years in the making. I am not good at writing female characters. So I fretted over it and shelved it many a time. The pandemic gave me the impetus to be brash and just do it.<br/><br/>To everyone who wrote to me over the course of the last few months, telling me about how old stories were companions to you in these times of upheaval, you lightened my everyday.<br/>If you are new, thank you for taking a chance. Don't hesitate to write to me!<br/>If you have sailed with me in the past, I am glad I could write for you once more.<br/>Take care.</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28959444">Corona Chorus</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/leglacie/pseuds/leglacie">leglacie</a>
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30248982">The One</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/leglacie/pseuds/leglacie">leglacie</a>
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30290337">It was a good morning</a> by Anonymous
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30339858">to eldritcher, with love</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaysandcrime/pseuds/gaysandcrime">gaysandcrime</a>
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</div></div></div>
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